TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG (Australia/France/UK/China - 2020) Directed by Justin Kurzel. Written by Shaun Grant. Cast: George MacKay, Russell Crowe, Charlie Hunnam, Essie Davis, Nicholas Hoult, Orlando Schwerdt, Thomasin McKenzie, Sean Keenan, Earl Cave, Marlon Williams, Louis Hewison, Ben Corbett, Claudia Karvan, Jack Charles, Lola Hewison, Paul Capsis, Jacob Collins-Levy. (R, 125 mins) Licking his wounds after his ill-advised sojourn to Hollywood for a big-budget video game franchise that wasn't with the dismal ASSASSIN'S CREED, Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel (THE SNOWTOWN MURDERS, MACBETH) retreats to safer ground with the smaller-scale TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG. Based on Peter Carey's acclaimed 2000 novel of the same name, the film is yet another look at the life of Australian outlaw, folk hero, and cultural icon Ned Kelly, executed by hanging in 1880 and played in the past by Mick Jagger in 1970's NED KELLY and by Heath Ledger in an identically-titled 2003 version. Carey's novel was more or less high-end Ned Kelly fan fiction, and Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant take even more liberties with their so-called "punk rock" adaptation, most notably with some gender-bending elements and overt homoeroticism that indicate a queer interpretation of the Kelly mythology. It doesn't really stick the landing and comes off as trying too hard to force a subtext--one that wasn't in the novel--through the enlightened lens of woke 2020. It's an interesting approach that probably seemed like a better concept on paper than in the way it plays out on the screen, where the feeling ends up being one of a grim Down Under western like THE PROPOSITION if re-imagined by HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH auteur John Cameron Mitchell.
The title itself is an intentional misnomer, as an opening caption reads "Nothing you're about to see is true." The story is told through a letter Kelly writes to his unborn child, and we first see 12-year-old Ned (Orlando Schwerdt) in the desolate nowhere of Van Diemen's Land, where his father Red (Ben Corbett) has been banished. The area is patrolled by despicable Brit Sgt. O'Neil (Charlie Hunnam), who regularly enjoys the sexual services of Red's wife and Ned's mother Ellen (THE BABADOOK's Essie Davis, who's terrific here). When Red is hauled away by O'Neil and eventually dies, Ellen takes up with a variety of suitors, including the notorious Harry Power (a bloated, madman-bearded Russell Crowe), a wily bushranger and feared outlaw who takes Ned under his wing and teaches him to be a man. It turns out to be yet another cruel life lesson for young Ned, who wants to go back to his mother but is informed that it's out of the question since she sold him to Harry. As an adult, Ned (1917's George MacKay takes over the role 40 minutes in) is making a meager living as a bareknuckle brawler and returns along with his friend Joe Byrne (Sean Keenan) to his ramshackle child home, where his mother has taken up with George King (Marlon Williams), an American who's the same age as he is, and who politely introduces himself to his stepson with "I try to forget that you came kicking and screaming out of that pussy." Ned, who exchanges longing glances and playful physical affection with Joe (including spooning and cuddling) is alarmed to find his younger brother Dan (Earl Cave, Nick's lookalike son) wearing dresses and in a sexual relationship with one-eyed Steve Hart (Louis Hewison). That bit of info is given to him by sadistic constable Alex Fitzpatrick (Nicholas Hoult, channeling a young Malcolm McDowell), who Ned first meets at a local brothel, where they flirt with one another while a nude Fitzpatrick lounges on a sofa wearing nothing but garters and socks and waxing rhapsodic about fucking while wearing a dress.
Though punctuated by sporadic instances of shocking violence (including one guy strung up to a tree with his own balls crammed into his mouth), TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG is less a commercial western and more a surreal, stylized study of the tortured psyche of Ned Kelly, whether it's him sorting out his bi-curiosity and his masculinity, his unresolved Oedipal issues with his unstable mother, or his love for prostitute and single mom Mary Hearn (Thomasin McKenzie), who gets the full Ellen Kelly treatment upon her introduction, with Ned's mother spitting "Look at you...you got one of those cunts men fall in love with." It's not just the "True" part of the title that's a misnomer, but the Kelly Gang as well. Kurzel and Grant aren't interested in any of the standard western exploits of an outlaw gang. Said gang--cross-dressing enthusiasts calling themselves "Sons of Sieve," and initially comprised of Ned, Dan, Steve, and Jim, before being joined by many others--just appears in time for the shootout with British constables at Glenrowan, presented here in seizure-inducing Gaspar Noe-like fashion with intense strobe lighting and the constables represented in the distance as flashing skeletal figures with light beams for bullets. MacKay gives it his all in a performance that frequently borders on feral, but Kurzel and Grant don't appear to be working toward a defined purpose here, throwing a ton of ideas at the wall--including some intentional anachronisms that seem to be a shout-out to WALKER-era Alex Cox, which no one needs--just to see what sticks. TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG works best in the more conventional opening third, which is where it's most like your usual grim Australian western, with a hammy Crowe briefly taking center stage, leading the Kelly kids in a catchy and stunningly vulgar singalong and proving himself an absolutely merciless bastard once he's got young Ned in tow. The film gets less interesting as each name actor exits (Crowe and Hunnam both check out by the 35-minute mark). That's not on MacKay, but the more TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG goes on, the more Kurzel loses the thread and the film becomes an exercise in ponderous, scattershot self-indulgence that's trying to be too many things at once.
MINDHORN (UK - 2017) Directed by Sean Foley. Written by Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby. Cast: Julian Barratt, Andrea Riseborough, Essie Davis, Steve Coogan, Russell Tovey, Simon Farnaby, Richard McCabe, David Schofield, Nicholas Farrell, Harriet Walter, Kenneth Branagh, Simon Callow, Jessica Barden, Robin Morrissey, Jordan Long. (Unrated, 88 mins) It succumbs to predictability when the comedy gives way to formulaic action in the third act, but the British-made Netflix acquisition MINDHORN, starring and co-written by THE MIGHTY BOOSH's Julian Barratt, gets its share of big laughs from an inspired premise. Barratt is Richard Thorncroft, a washed-up Isle of Man-born actor best known for a late '80s/early '90s TV series called MINDHORN, In it, Thorncroft starred as Bruce Mindhorn, an MI-5 agent who was captured and held prisoner at a secret compound in the outer regions of Siberia, where Soviet scientists replaced his left eye with a cybernetic optical lie detector, "allowing him to literally see the truth!" according to the show's dead-on INCREDIBLE HULK-type voiceover intro ("It's Truth Time!" Mindhorn declares when he nabs a perp). MINDHORN was a big hit for a few years but Thorncroft did a poor job of handling his fame. After releasing an album with the minor hit single "You Can't Handcuff the Wind" (sample lyric: "It's like tryin' to put thunder in jail!"), the show's popularity waned, ratings plummeted, his relationship with leading lady Patricia Deville (Essie Davis of THE BABADOOK) fell apart, and he had a very public meltdown when he appeared falling-down drunk on a live talk show, trash-talking co-star Peter Easterman (Steve Coogan), who played Mindhorn's sidekick Windjammer. Upon MINDHORN's cancellation, Easterman became a bigger star than Thorncroft ever was thanks to the spinoff WINDJAMMER, currently in its 16th season and still the most-watched show on British TV. Thorncroft's fall from grace continued when he ditched his loyal agent Geoffrey Moncrief (Richard McCabe) and went off to Hollywood when a megabudget producer promised to make him the next Burt Reynolds. The movie bombed and Thorncroft crashed and burned, and he's been scrounging for work and licking his wounds in London in the 20 years since. He's still trying to stage a comeback, still sucking in his gut and throwing on a Mindhorn toupee to cover his now-bald head, with his latest agent (Harriet Walter) unable to find any publisher interest in his autobiography (Easterman has just published his third memoir), while his most prominent recent gigs have found him coasting on what little MINDHORN notoriety he still has in TV commercials endorsing man-girdles and orthopedic socks.
After a disastrous audition with Kenneth Branagh where he humiliates himself pretending he and Branagh go back decades ("Kenny B!"), Thorncroft is about to throw in the towel, but he gets an unexpected offer from an Isle of Man police precinct: escaped lunatic Paul Melly (Russell Tovey), who makes squawking sounds and calls himself "The Kestral," is the prime suspect in a recent murder, but he refuses to speak with Baines (Andrea Riseborough), the detective on the case. Instead, MINDHORN superfan Melly, who thinks the character is real, will only talk to Agent Mindhorn, which leads the cops to hire Thorncroft to once again essay his signature role to help capture "The Kestral." Of course, at-an-all-time-low Thorncroft can't help but become a braying jackass and all-around egomaniac now that he thinks he's in-demand once more, and he very nearly screws up the entire investigation before accidentally helping apprehend Melly. But after reconnecting with Patricia, now a crusading reporter, and learning she ran off with his old stunt double Clive Parnevik (co-writer Simon Farnaby), Thorncroft is once more despondent until evidence surfaces that Melly has been framed for the murder, with Geoffrey having the proof on a VHS tape. When Geoffrey turns up dead and Thorncroft is implicated, he and Melly escape and set out to clear both of their names. Thorncroft's bigger concern seems to be his career, which, after a brief resurgence of interest thanks to his role in capturing Melly, immediately goes back into the shitter following an escalating confrontation with the gloating Easterman that goes viral when Thorncroft takes a swing at his former co-star and instead punches an innocent female bystander.
It should come as no surprise as MINDHORN (which counts Ridley Scott among its producers) reaches its conclusion that getting to the bottom of the case is key to Thorncroft's personal and professional redemption, as are rekindling his romance with Patricia and getting the idiotic Clive out of the picture. MINDHORN is consistently amusing but works best in its early scenes, especially its establishment of the current sad state of Thorncroft's life and career. There's a definite sense of Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant-style cringe comedy that gives way to a more HOT FUZZ-esque genre parody, and the styles don't always mesh. Also, the identity of the real villain is a bit of a letdown, since the individual doesn't have much to do with the plot and just seems arbitrarily tossed in. Barratt is appropriately self-deprecating in a role that would've had Kevin Kline written all over it 25 years ago, though he and debuting director Sean Foley could've just as easily gone in either direction the whole way through, be it a squirming discomfort about a washed-up actor or as an outright parody with a feature-length MINDHORN episode in the vein of an AUSTIN POWERS or a MACGRUBER. There's some very funny inside jokes for fans of British cinema, whether it's Branagh's deadpan cameo as himself ("No fucking clue who that was," he tells his assistant when Thorncroft finally leaves), or Thorncroft dealing with the ballbusting of actor/author Simon Callow, another of his agent's clients ("Fuck off, Callow!"). There's also some big laughs coming from his diva-like attitude when he arrives to help with the investigation, stopping a cop and ordering a coffee or requesting his tea with two teabags and name-dropping Sean Bean in the process ("Picked that up from Sean Bean...'Double-Bag' Bean, we called him."). MINDHORN doesn't maintain that same level of absurdist inspiration all the way through, but as far as Netflix Originals go, it's a better British comedy than DAVID BRENT: LIFE ON THE ROAD and a much better cop comedy than the dismal HANDSOME: A NETFLIX MYSTERY MOVIE.
