An Underrated Charlie Hunnam Movie Airs on TV Tonight

One of actor Charlie Hunnam's lesser-known movies is airing on TV tonight, giving fans the perfect chance to check it out. True History of the Kelly Gang begins at 6:55 p.m. ET on Showtime on Saturday, March 13. Fans of Hunnam, his other work or western films, in general, should definitely give it a chance.

True History of the Kelly Gang is based on a novel by the same name written by Peter Carey. It tells the story of an Australian bushranger named Ned Kelly — played by George MacKay — and his gang's attempts to evade the authorities in the 1870s. Hunnam plays Sergeant O'Neill, one of the main villains of the story — a corrupt cop in the colonial system who has Ned's father imprisoned and extorts sexual favors from his mother. Both the book and the movie were heavily fictionalized, and include glaring historical and geographical inaccuracies. Still, that does not detract from the epic scope of the story.

True History of the Kelly Gang came out in 2019, first premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and then in the U.S. in April of 2020. It is one of the many films to suffered a stunted release due to the coronavirus pandemic since few customers were able to go to theaters at the time. Now, hopefully, its new life on streaming and Showtime will spell better days ahead.

True History of the Kelly Gang has gotten relatively good reviews among those who have seen it, though it tends to fare better with film critics than with general audiences. At the time of this writing, the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregator shows it with a 79 percent score among journalists but a 39 percent score among audiences. Reviewers on both sides praised the movie's tone and social depictions but found its historical anachronisms too distracting.

"That unhinged, hallucinatory spirit is what [Director Justin] Kurzel taps into visually... realism clashing with fantasy to the point where the landscape feels more Mordor than the bush outside Melbourne," wrote Filmspotting critic Adam Kempenaar. "It's a lot. A little too much for me."

On Saturday, fans can see the controversial western for themselves. True History of the Kelly Gang begins at 6:55 p.m. ET on Showtime. The movie is also streaming on the Showtime app, Showtime Anytime, which is included with many cable packages or is available as a subscription service for $10.99 per month. Disclosure: PopCulture is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of ViacomCBS.