I wrote this review a couple of weeks ago, upon seeing the movie Ned Kelly on TV. Since that time, the sad news came that the talented Heath Ledger died today, possibly due to an accidental drug overdose. Ledger was starting to be amongst my list of favorite actors, and his role in Ned Kelly shows the some of the intensity that he is capable of.

Ned Kelly: Public Enemy #1. [SPOILERS]
Heath Ledger stars as Ned Kelly, set in Victoria, Australia in the late 1800s. The movie is based on Robert Drewe’s novel, Our Sunshine, which is based on the real life of Ned Kelly, an Australian bushranger. Supporting cast: Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Naomi Watts, Rachel Griffiths, Joel Edgerton. Directed by Gregor Jordan. Released Mar 26, 2004.

Ned, his brother and a few friends try to protect Ned’s sister from the romantic advances of a persistent constable, whom she has already shunned. In retaliation, the officer accuses the brothers of horse theft and shoots one of their horses. From there, events keep escalating, eventually to the point where Ned and his brothers kill two officers. Now there’s a price on his head, and anyone who chooses can shoot him on sight then claim the reward.

The brothers progress to bank-robbing, then kidnapping out of necessity to protect themselves. To get back at the Kelly “gang”, the authorities give their mother a sentence of three years hard labor, and arrest a hundred men and boys from nearby his home and punish them. None of them turn the Kellys in, though one friend is pressured into betraying them but is later killed.

The movie, painful throughout to watch, ends pretty much the only way it could: with Ned’s brother and friends dead (the latter two having shot themselves in the head, rather than be captured by officers). Ned is also hanged at age 25, in 1880, despite a petition of 32,000 signatures. All because a young woman - his sister - shunned a man who was a police officer.