True History of the Kelly Gang
IFC Films | Release Date (Streaming): April 24, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 10, 2019
Lithe and volatile and recklessly stylized to the hilt, True History of the Kelly Gang has moves like Jagger, but a head still teeming with language and history. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangApr 24, 2020
True History of the Kelly Gang, for its part, strikes just the right balance of scary and crazy, and it subjects both to an impressive measure of discipline. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 10, 2019
The Robin Hood-like renegade hero of the Antipodean common man, Ned Kelly gets a ripping reinvention in director Justin Kurzel's feverish punk Western, a raw rebel yell of a movie that combines visceral violence with a kind of delirious, scrappy poetry. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzApr 27, 2020
Adapted by screenwriter Shaun Grant from the novel by Peter Carey, and directed by Justin Kurzel, "True History" is a dream, or nightmare, about Ned, his family, Australia, manhood, womanhood, and how hard it is for poor people to escape the class they were born into. Read full review
85
TheWrapSteve PondSep 13, 2019
There is a terrible majesty to the landscape and to the story, and Kurzel gives it room to breathe. Read full review
83
The PlaylistCharles BramescoSep 10, 2019
Kurzel’s prismatic view of Kelly’s life and times goes to gnarlier and more vivid places than superficially similar period pieces. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 10, 2019
It’s refreshing to discover that True History has an actual perspective on the events of Ned’s formative years. Read full review
80
Film ThreatHunter LanierApr 25, 2020
As you follow Ned into adulthood and bear witness to his many exploits—bare-knuckle brawling, throwing together a gang of brutes who wear pretty dresses, walking into a gunfight with a homemade suit of bulletproof armor, and more—you figure out quickly that the movie’s biggest strength is its desire to disgust and disorient. Read full review
80
VoxAlissa WilkinsonApr 24, 2020
Kurzel favors stylized images and the occasional anachronistic metal track to provoke a mood more than faithfully recreate history. And his approach works well in this film, bolstered by a strong cast, which features MacKay, Russell Crowe, Nicholas Hoult, Charlie Hunnam, Thomasin McKenzie, and Essie Davis. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversApr 23, 2020
Visually, however, True History speaks volumes. In tandem with MacKay, whose incendiary performance finds method in Ned’s growing madness, Kurzel and his crew of merry, malicious pranksters blow the dust off a calcified outlaw history to bring something elemental and transgressive to the screen. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekApr 16, 2020
What Kelly Gang lacks in historical accuracy it makes up for with brash punk energy. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansMar 31, 2020
This Kelly is motivated by an oedipal complex and wears dresses to distract his opponents; The Babadook’s Essie Davis is equal parts fearsome and magnetic as his enterprising sex worker mother. More enjoyable still are the film’s corrupt policemen; the louche, stockinged, pipe-smoking Constable Fitzpatrick (Nicholas Hoult) and virile cartoon villain Sergeant O’Neil (Charlie Hunnam). Read full review
80
EmpireNev PierceFeb 24, 2020
A compelling, grubby outback Western revealing the ragged reality behind a folk hero. Terrific performances, incredible visuals, and a reassertion of Justin Kurzel as a bold filmmaker most comfortable dealing with discomfort. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 13, 2019
It is a very grueling spectacle, often brilliant, sometimes slightly redundant and perhaps not able to maintain the storytelling rush of its first act. But it is always weirdly plausible in its pure strangeness and in the oddly poignant moments Read full review
80
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 10, 2019
While the emotional intensity and somewhat protracted narrative can be exhausting, in visual terms the film is a tour de force, steeped in blood, dust and squalor. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 8, 2020
Those who enjoy gritty, angry Westerns (especially those set in the Australian bush rather than along the American frontier) will find much here to their taste, none of which is in need of additional seasoning. Read full review
75
ObserverOliver JonesApr 24, 2020
The movie shows that, true or not, in the right hands and with the right actors, this oft-told tale—like the Western genre itself—can course with the kind of venturesomeness that makes cinema so exciting no matter the circumstances under which we watch it. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleCary DarlingApr 23, 2020
True History of the Kelly Gang may not be history as recorded by historians, but it’s history as recorded by a director with verve and vision. In this case, that’s enough. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnSep 10, 2019
The movie hovers in a curious paradox, coming across as both operatic tribute and horrific condemnation, but it’s never less than a nasty crime drama with plenty of grimy characters to keep the stakes compelling throughout. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattApr 24, 2020
You can see gifted actors like Hoult and MacKay struggling to make the most of the material, and add finer shadings to Shaun Grant's bare-knuckled script. But for all its real visual flair, it's hard not to feel that the film misses something crucial about Kelly in the end — trading machismo for manhood, and sensation for true history. Read full review
65
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsApr 24, 2020
The script has enough sexual pathology humming under the hood to stoke sufficient curiosity about the depths of Kelly‘s strangeness. It doesn’t exploit these ideas nearly enough, though it makes up for that lack with a carnival of likable faces: Hunnam, McKay, Nicholas Hoult, the rising star Thomasin McKenzie. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrApr 23, 2020
He (Kurzel) wants this “true history” to be a Rorschach blot of Australia’s national psychology, but he’s made something closer to splatter art instead. Read full review
63
Slant MagazinePat BrownApr 20, 2020
In more than one sense, Justin Kurzel’s aggressively strange film queers the myth of the oft-lionized Ned Kelly. Read full review
50
Screen RantSandy SchaeferApr 23, 2020
For all its stylized flourishes and raw performances, True History of the Kelly Gang's confused narrative prevents it from fully taking off. Read full review
50
The New York TimesGlenn KennyApr 23, 2020
Grant and Kurzel’s conceptions of the characters are so one-dimensional they seem to defeat the movie’s talented cast. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 2, 2020
The film only picks up with its finale, and even that grand, murderous and visually stunning spectacle is somewhat spoiled by a preachy epilogue. Read full review
40
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMar 6, 2020
It’s all heading somewhere special as Kelly muses on masculinity and colonialism, but then coherence gives way to flashy visuals and bursts of expressionistic violence. Read full review
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