Justin Kurzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang is an upcoming fictional portrayal of Peter Carey’s novel based on the biography of Ned Kelly and his notorious gang of bushrangers who terrorized, freed, emboldened, and inspired the outback of Australia.
The trailer doesn’t really do much to explain the story of the Kelly Gang, but we get the impression that early on in life he was turned onto the path of violence and everything (d)evolved from there.
The trailer is a real head trip, though. It doesn’t let off the gas once it gets going, and we see that not every big name who appears in the film will make it out unscathed.
Charlie Hunnam seems to bite the dust early on while undressed, and Russell Crowe doesn’t seem to make it out either. Nicholas Holt gets his arm shot off, and there’s a big battle involving makeshift bullet-proof armor. You can check out the trailer below courtesy of FilmSelect Trailer.
Unlike other biopics that attempt to chronologically tell a story of a character in a coherent and linear way, during the trailer we get a lot of bouncing back and forth between Kelly as a boy and Kelly as a man.
We see how much of a role his mother played in his development, his influence on Australian youth, and his ability to become a nuisance to society.
The film looks like it takes Carey’s novel and then adds slaps some Guy Ritchie on it.
Kurzel’s flick will likely get all of the typically triggered snowflakes that roam around the social media sphere complaining about “toxic masculinity” and “gun culture” and digitally fainting through their hundred-post-long Twitter threads. To that? I say good.
Let them wallow in their weakness; fret and cry at the depiction of a real man doing real manly things.
Hopefully the trailer isn’t a lie and it’s not one of those flicks that lures in audiences with something entertaining only to turn into a simpering smorgasbord of sentimentality and sorrowfulness.
We’ll find out just what kind of film Kurzel crafted when The True History of the Kelly Gang hits theaters in January of 2020.
