Review by © Jane Freebury
A refusal to submit to authority has pride of place in movies
from down under. Here we expect a film about a 19th century
bushranger, who robbed the banks and the filthy rich, to be a spirited journey
with a man of the people. A man like Ben Hall, whose reputation has for some
reason faded over time against that of bushranger turned folk hero, Ned Kelly.
When at large, Australian bushrangers were feared for the brutal
criminals they were, but some were charismatic rogues who people were prepared
to hide when the police came knocking. And the authorities weren’t clean skins
either which helps explain why early last century when bushranger films
appeared on screen, the audience cheered them on. So boisterously, the
authorities banned them. Too popular.
Some of the bushranger—mostly blokes, though there is at
least one woman on the record—weren’t complete blaggards either. Hall, who was
mown down by police in 1865, had some land he leased and a wife and child
before he took to a life of crime. He has some cachet in having never shot a policeman
dead, though the same cannot be said for other members of his gang, John
Gilbert and John Dunn.
The newspapers of the day reported quite a crowd at Hall’s
funeral in Forbes, NSW. A revealing observation. Hall was on the wrong side of
the law, but he was reputedly courteous, brazen, loyal and often a step ahead
of the police. Moreover, he was handsome and a daredevil horseman. All in all,
an appealing package. It explains why Hall became an object of interest for writer-director
Matthew Holmes and the subject of his recent film, The Legend of Ben Hall.
Unfortunately, the fascination does not translate into the
result the filmmakers clearly hoped for. The action-adventure locations look fabulous
but, critically, Ben Hall’s character is seriously underwritten. As for the
case for Ben Hall as legend? We’re not there yet.
As the central character, Jack Martin does his best to be
well-meaning and dashing, but he doesn’t have good dialogue to work with, and
nor do most of the others. A hold-up of Cobb & Co coach, a key dramatic
moment, is heavily over-played failing to ignite much tension. Nor do the
scenes of the gang when they have their guard down inject the rollicking, irreverent
humour we could all have done with. For a period film, the contemporary tone of
the dialogue is jarring, and at odds with the effort that has been put into making
costume and other period detail visually authentic.
The film achieves its vision to some degree with the action,
in the stirring scenes of men on horseback, galloping through bushland and across
high country. In this way, it becomes a valentine to the magnificent bush
wilderness, like The Man from Snowy River,
but falls short of showing us what Ben Hall means to us today. The film’s visual
grandeur and lush heroic score insist on the man as legend, but it’s more a
question of ‘tell’ than ‘show’.
The Legend of Ben Hall
arrived on screen late last year and had a limited release. If the filmmakers
are planning companion bushranger films as reported, they would do well to go
for it by building flesh and blood characters of complexity and contradiction, and
leaving the myth-making alone. There’s no reason to think the bushranger genre
has played itself out yet.
2.5 Stars
Also published at Jane's blog
