The Legend of Ben Hall

The Legend of Ben Hall

It seems to me that in America, there is an inclination to regard pop culture as the only culture that offers a platform and advocates for its anti-heroes, sociopathic outlaws whose existence has been turned to a romanticized fantasy for inexplicable reasons. However such appreciation of the criminal as a pretend hero does not take place within the confines of the United States alone.

There are many stories already in this series about antiheroes in the history of almost every country in the world. The latest such case comes from Australia where Ben Hall, the criminal figure Americans deserve to know, is being turned into a star in the new Media series The Legend of Ben Hall; The Legend of Ben Hall is available on DVD and on demand services across America.

Ben Hall (Jack Martin) was the embodiment of what a Bushranger was, a thief but with some principles. In the years since Ben Hall has been on barricades with his gang of outlaws, he’s never killed anyone. While this is not to say that Ben is entirely honorable, that is one thing who is a criminal and a violent one for that matter, but the fact that he has never killed, at the very least, makes him a violent crime offender with good principles. Ben is a man that is still torn apart inside because his wife, Biddy (Joanne Dobbin), went to another man and took his kid; he still envisions taking that boy once he saves enough to escape to America.

Joining Jack is the far more dangerous outlaw, John Gilbert (Jamie Coffa), whose best quality is his loyalty to Ben; it’s the only thing that keeps Gilbert from becoming an outright psychopath. Together, Ben and John recruit Jon Dunn (William Lee) and they begin a reign of terror on Australian banks that led the banks and the government to extreme measures to fight back. Those extreme measures eventually led to a moment of reckoning for a bloodthirsty army of thug law enforcers and the Australian military which compromised their ethics eventually to put an end to Ben Hall and his gang.

The Legend of Ben Hall does not seem to have any true heroes, but then again, it’s hard to be outraged by Matthew Holmes’s portrayal of his anti-heroes. It is actually very entertaining to watch Ben, John, and Jon crash a parade in some backwater village as they go to mingle at a community dance against the barrel of a gun. It manages to build up to a rather tense moment between Ben Hall and one of the defiant parties who left the dance while being chased through the crowd as he was trying to stop the gang. In that part of the movie, one of the basic moral principles of Ben Hall is put aside in preferences of sending a strong message to the audience.

Jack Martin looks a bit over the top to be an Outback Bushranger, but I am looking at his photo and for some strange reason it matches that of Ben Hall quite well. The chiseled jaw and honed pectorals and abs of Martin seem more like a guy who spends time on a Bowflex machine than on a saddle, but maybe that is just my jealousy talking, wish I was as good looking as him. Coffa and Lee do seem like they fit the look more, but Martin has somewhat of a relation to the character as he has previously played Ben Hall in a short film which this film eventually was based on.

Despite dealing with Bushrangers, The Legend of Ben Hall has managed to hook the non-Aussie audience which is surprising. Reminiscent of a standard American, The Legend of Ben Hall is reminiscent of the many outlaws who hitched a ride across the Atlantic ocean westwards with no emotion or rationale as to why they were doing it, consider Ben Hall for instance who had little morality but at least made for a better antihero.

The freedom and the might that come from lawbreaking is something that the audience quite admirably aspires for. It’s the western dream where you live in the open, take whatever you want, and inspire fear in those that cannot match your level of freedom. It is a dream, albeit a rather revolting one according to moral and ethical values.

The Legend of Ben Hall manages to burst this bubble rather cleverly and rather vividly by showcasing the depths of Ben’s failed attempts as a robber as much as the clever planner of the heists. There are no romantic tales about Hall’s life; it was a perilous life that ended in controversy when he was shot 33 times during the homicide that he did not start nor wanted, and this would later be called justifiable homicide in spite of all facts.

The Legend of Ben Hall presents interesting and exciting characters and tells an engaging story, and writer Matthew Holmes also successfully directs the film, which is quite amusing because he has a special interest in Hall. Luckily, Holmes also wrote the short which preceded his epic feature, creating a minor intrigue. The Legend of Ben Hall will be released on Blu-Ray, DVD, and On-Demand on Tuesday, August 1st.

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