Wonderful character development!

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

MAD DOG MORGAN is a low budget Aussie drama charting the life and times of the titular character, played with relish by Dennis Hopper at his outlandish best. Morgan was a real-life outlaw who pre-dated Ned Kelly and rang rings around the Aussie police after going on a rampage following his imprisonment for a minor crime. Hopper is a great choice for the role and I can think of few other actors to portray the character's bearded bravado so convincingly.The film itself is a real cheapie but nonetheless engaging thanks to the rural photography and fun supporting roles. It has a fast pace that focuses on physicality and action throughout and a really vicious streak that emphasises visceral destruction. Even better, the great Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil has a strong supporting role as Hopper's friend and comrade, while the rest of the cast features the usual eccentric Aussie characters. Watch out for Bruce Spence in a bit part.

I was moved to write something after reading with dismay comments from others that this was a fair depiction of Morgan... it wasn't.Daniel Morgan was not named "Mad Dog" for no reason. He was a murderous rapist, and anyone with the interest to research the matter will agree. On one occasion Morgan joined forces with "Gentleman" Ben Hall to rob a large, well guarded, and very wealthy homestead, but when Morgan attempted to rape one of the women, Hall intervened and the two came to blows, Hall stood his ground and it almost became a gunfight. Hall took control and ordered Morgan off the property, threatening to shoot Morgan on the spot if he didn't go.Morgan may well have been a victim of a corrupt and autocratic Colonial Rule, but so was Hall, and he never mistreated his victims, other than to take their valuables. Hall never robbed or disrespected women, in fact male victims upon being "baled up" would quickly put all their money and valuables into the women's purses, knowing that Hall would never commit any bad act against a woman. Hall countered by begging forgiveness, but "could the dear lady please remove all the men's belongings from her purse?" His manner was so gracious and flattering they would usually blush and comply.Mad Dog was entirely the opposite, a brutal and violent psychopath, and to glorify Morgan is simply fictitious sensationalism designed to garner applause for what is essentially a very bad movie. I thought Hopper did not take the role seriously and it seems he felt his reputation was all that was required for the payday. The movie was completely disjointed and came across as a series of unconnected one-act plays.I gave it 3/10 purely for the beautiful Australian backdrop, but ONLY 3 because it was so poorly shot.

If looking on the DVD cover that is provided by Troma (yes, that old chestnut) - and by this I mean the *new* sort-of remastered uncut DVD version released last year, not the much lamented previous version that looks like hell- you would think that you have been missing out on something really special for your whole cinematic life. How has one not seen a mid 70's Aussie-Western (also one of the very first Australian film distributed in the US) which stars Dennis Hopper as a mad bandit going around the Queensland colonies in the 19th century donning a fake beard and shooting (mostly) those who he deems deserve a killing? It could go either way: it could either be the case where it is a suppressed classic just waiting to be unearthed, or it's a piece of Aussie trash given some prestige above its other Ausploitation films due to its star. Ultimately, the movie is somewhere in the middle, though it tries to be a classic when it can, and sometimes can't help but be kind of trashy due to its budget.It's protagonist is something of an icon in Australia, like their Billy the Kid (sadly I'd yet to hear of him until this film), who started out as just an Irish farmer who enjoyed his opium, but ran away from a massacre of the Chinese in the area. He then got put in jail for one hold-up, got tortured and raped in prison, and then got out to try and become normal again, only to get shot and get healed by an aborigine. If this sounds like something interesting so far, it is. But the only downside it's at this point that the film finally takes off, after the first half hour; it's not that the opening half hour is bad in the slightest, since the cinematography by Mike Molloy is always something cool to look at in widescreen anamorphic. But the pace is kind of jerky and shaky, going from one set-up to another with a jarring feeling. This happens at other points in the film as well, but not as much as at this part.And yet, as just noted, when Morgan is shot and heals up with the aborigine (a very natural David Gulpilil), he then decides to fight back. In a way he becomes an outlaw since he's left with no alternative, but at the same time goes for it for all it's worth. He especially attacks the upper class, those who have lots of money and land, and he becomes the big target for the police and authorities in the area, garnering a 1,000 dollar reward. It's here we get to see the big bad Dennis Hopper becomes as Morgan, and the film takes on a quality that is kind of special: it's a western, but it's also an anti-western. It's not about how Morgan is just some amoral villain going around to rob and maim and kill. His terms of being criminal are partly for survival (not too oddly enough one of his old prison "buddies" goes after him now as a member of the local authority), and partly to stick it to 'the man' circa 1860 Australia. We see the people who should be taking Morgan out as being, appropriately for the time period, not very sharp: one of their goals once they get kill Morgan is to study his skull to see how primitive he is.It's this, actually, that Philippe Mora latches on to. How primitive a life does Morgan lead as an outlaw? His main compadre is an aborigine, who is barely looked on as human by the people in charge in the Aussie area, and as he keeps going along he's more at peace in an odd way with his fate. He knows how lucky he is to get *this* far, and he becomes more of a bad-ass because of it. He's a solid anti-hero, and Hopper makes the movie as awesome as it can get. He has a look about him- yes, even with that fake beard like something out of Cannibal the Musical- that is a little frightening, but also kind of sympathetic and sad. There's a scene where his Morgan is in a house with a woman, and she basically offers herself to him sexually, and he just softly speaks about how he just can't do it, and speaks about his mother. It's a very odd but touching scene, mostly due to Hopper's dedication to the role. By the end he becomes a kind of tragic figure. He's not just the only reason to see the movie; when it's at its best, Mora's direction is sharp and exciting, particularly with action scenes as you really don't know who will get it and how bad in rifle and bullet fire, the blood being a big factor as well. And the cinematography, even in a print that is still shoddy in this updated Troma release, is striking and ethereal, giving the movie a whole other quality than I expected. Is it a great movie? Surely not. The pacing is not always tight, and some of the supporting performances are weak, as they tend to be in low-budget B-movies. But for what they had to work with, star included, it's definitely worth checking out.

I found Hopper's acting pretty good. He is a method actor, and was trying to play a madman. I'm not quite sure how familiar he was with Australia, in the extras, he refers to Aboriginals as "Aboriginaries".While probably most of the movie portrays events that happened, Morgan in real life was not so nice. It captures the essence of Mad Morgans life, but changes things to make him more endearing. In fact he was racist to Chinese miners, the film shows him as being sympathetic. He didn't have a lifelong Aboriginal friend....and he was never called "Mad Dog" Morgan. He was cruel at times, forcing a woman to walk into a fire at one point, however he was liked by locals, and did force overseers to pay the workers more and hand out cheques. The acting was pretty good. Probably one of the best things about this movie is that it features some of the best Australian actors at the time - Jack Thompson, Frank Thring, Bill Hunter, JOhn Haregreaves and Graeme Blundell. Cinematography was good too, nice use of the Australian bush.