Director Matthew Holmes
Starring Jack Martin, Jamie Coffa, William Lee
Rated M
Score 6/6

Ben Hall is drawn back into bushranging by the reappearance of his old friend John Gilbert. Reforming the gang, they soon become the most wanted men in Australian history.

Okay, just to put things into perspective for those of you who might not be familiar with Australian Bushrangers or just need a slight refresher when Ben Hall died in 1865 Ned Kelly would have been 11.

I’m certain I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again I am a fan of ‘cowboy westerns’. They have so much going for them the action, the scenery, the question of good vs evil and lets just face they are fun to watch. So, you can understand my level of enthusiasm in wanting to watch The Legend of Ben Hall considering that the last Australian movies that where released that would fall into that genre where released well over 10 years ago being Ned Kelly in 2003 and The Proposition in 2005.

I’m not going debate the historical accuracy of this movie I’ll leave that to other people who have a better understanding of the history. What I will say is that writer/director Matthew Holmes delivered something that is beautiful to watch and even though it might fall into the ‘cowboy western’ genre it has a completely different feel. I would assume that’s because this is an Australian movie and I am very interested to see how much further Holmes explores the legends surrounding Hall and his associates. Both Jack Martin and Jamie Coffa gave great performances as Ben Hall and John Gilbert. I thought it was very interesting to see that Hall and Gilbert seemed to be polar opposites of each other.