Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

palainausa I've read many of the reviews and find little to disagree with. The film has its shortcomings, and also things to recommend about it. But no one noticed the one funny scene in the whole film. Morgan confronts a man who has informed the police of Morgan's possible whereabouts. The man surely fears death, but Morgan only knocks him unconscious. Prior to being knocked out, he was butchering an animal. Morgan reaches into the offal pail and spreads the liver and intestines on the prostrate man, above where his own would be. When the man awakens he looks down to see a dog eating the offal, thinks it's his own innards and screams to bloody hell. Who says there's no humor?

otteni52 Despite some technical shortcomings and rather loose presentation, Mad Dog Morgan is an entertaining showcase of the Ozploitation genre. Dennis Hopper gives a strong performance, firing away as Irish prospector turned bushwhacker Daniel Morgan and there's rarely a dull moment. The pacing is quick and punchy, but not without it's more subtle dramatic moments.Though what's most fascinating is that it's no more about crime than how easily a life can be corrupted, turning an individual into a criminal. Daniel Morgan is a confused, violent character but we sympathize with him nonetheless All in all it's an interesting, near forgotten piece of film-making. You'd be hard pressed to find a proper version, but it's a must see for anyone interested in the sub-genre.

winner55 The previous reviewer, who complained of the historical inaccuracy of the film, somewhat missed the point. While the film may not be true to the original Morgan's personal story, it is certainly true of the conflict between legal authorities and outlaws throughout the English speaking countries during the 19th Century. The Governor at the end asks for Morgan's scrotum to be used as a tobacco pouch; I don't know if this happened to Morgan - but it happened to Nat Turner. Jesse James' corpse went on tour briefly as a carnival attraction before his family intervened; so did the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde in the 1930s. In Canada, one Indian outlaw was so feared, they used cannon to get at him in his last house rather than face him with small arms. Public hangings came to a halt in Great Britain because the crowd got raucously drunk and lecherous after-wards. The fact is, outlaws became legend because government agencies and private interests, as well as the perversity of the general public, made them so.Like Bonnie and Clyde, part of the function of this film - which is really more a 'docudrama' than an adventure film or simply another crime film - is recording what was said of Morgan once he became infamous. Of course most of it was lies - people want their fifteen minutes of fame, even if it's just for bumping into an well-known outlaw.That said, this film suffers from two major problems. First its low budget - it is clear from certain set-pieces that the film had high ambitions.. It is unfortunately clear, from the quality of the film-stock used (and its unevenness) and the awkward uniforms of the provincial police, that there just wasn't enough money to fulfill those ambitions.The second major failing is that the lead is given over to Dennis Hopper, a 'cult' actor of very limited range. He simply isn't up to it. His dialect is terrible, and he utterly lacks either the panache of a flamboyant outlaw, or the angst of a socially driven one. In fact we end the film not knowing much about Morgan, which makes all the broad lies about him believable. And that's a weakness - he needs to be a factual counterpoint to his own legend. Hopper cannot give us this, it's beyond his capabilities.Nonetheless, its an interesting film to watch, even as merely a curio. It was a risky film to make; Australian film industry had not yet attained 'world-class' status, and the strictly Australian subject-matter is certainly interesting. There is also some interesting cinematography, and the story has an odd draw to it even if its promise is never fully realized.Not a classic, but hardly the disaster some have remarked it as.

bamptonj CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS Once again, Dennis Hopper gives an over-the-top performance as Daniel Morgan, the infamous outlaw of the the 1860s. MAD DOG (as the film was also known) is highly evocative of the colonial era: frontier lands with few townships but individual homesteads, extreme parochialism and an uneasy relationship between free settlers and ex-convicts. The dirge begins on the NSW Goldfields where our Irish protagonist falls out with his fellow diggers and seeks company with the out-cast Chinese instead. Whilst smoking opium in a Joss House, a group of aggrieved and racist miners beset Morgan and his compatriots; burning the house to the ground. Morgan runs to the bush and becomes a highwayman: eventually being sentenced to the gaols. As the magistrate reveals, severe sentences are necessary to build the colony's roads.In gaol, Morgan is brutalized and maltreated by both guards and fellow prisoners. Upon his release, he finds himself in old ways and later makes an aboriginal companion. The duo continue to harass (mostly) the squatters and large-lot landowners along the Riverina in New South Wales and Victoria. Morgan is eventually shot and killed by a loose coalition of police officers and privateers. The authorities generally are portrayed as equally corrupt and invidious as Morgan. The bulk of the police-force, for instance, are recently released prisoners or prison-wardens looking for easy money. The Governor of Victoria (played deliciously by Frank Thring) subscribes to the belief that a mastermind criminal like Morgan must have "the physical attributes of a gorilla" and a "throw-back to primitive man" - forgetting his own monolithic presence and bulging forehead.Australia is presented as the penal colony it really was: "a melting pot of racial, social, and economic tensions" - and so film is quite a macarabe and episodic one. While evocative of the mood, a far amount of artistic license has been taken in the history. Surprisingly absent from MAD DOG MORGAN are accounts of sadist and barbaric acts committed by Morgan, including the ungentlemenly murder of two policemen shot in the back. Looking back, MAD DOG MORGAN contains a guest-list of Australian actors which now can be somewhat distracting (Yes, that is Alf Stewart from "HOME AND AWAY" as the Scottish Telegraphist.)