Review of The Legend of Ben Hall (2016) by Evan W — 05 Dec 2016

A beautifully shot Australian bushranger story, I'll admit that I was surprised by the quality of this movie considering it's partial funding from Kickstarter.

So, I'm very impressed with how it came out on the big screen.

The story enters Ben Halls life at the tail end of his bushranging career, which was jarring at first. But eventually settles into giving Ben Hall something to be striving for.

One of the massive strengths of this film is it's attention to detail with regards to historical accuracy. Weapons, clothing and sets looks convincing, and it's refreshing to see such engrossing historical Australian landscape standing as a character in itself.

To fault the film, I'd say that it is perhaps a bit too long, for the story it's telling, and I only mean a bit. Some scenes seemed to go on a bit too long, and I was waiting for the scene to finish in a non-suspenseful "ok, I get it, lets move on" kind of way.

Another fault I would pick would be the intentions of Ben Hall. Don't get me wrong, I loved the way Jack Martin played Ben Hall. For the most part, I understood him, he prioritised human life over the cash he would take in robberies. That part is fine, but the way his character was haunted by his wife and child, and the manner in which he tried to deal with the situation felt un-natural. And perhaps it's the historical accuracy letting it down, perhaps that is what was done in the day. But it certainly doesn't inspire empathy for his character in this age.

All in all, I think this is an important film for Australian cinema, it was created by passionate people, and that definitely comes through in the final product. I'm looking forward to the prequels!