SAM NEILL R.I.P. – ROBBERY UNDER ARMS (1985)

ROBBERY UNDER ARMS (1985) – The irreplaceable Sam Neill has passed away. Other sites will be focusing on Neill’s more well-known projects like the Jurassic Park movies, Reilly – Ace of Spies, The Hunt for Red October, Omen III: The Final Conflict and so many others. In keeping with Balladeer’s Blog’s theme I’m taking a look at Sam’s neglected Bushranger movie Robbery Under Arms.

Before I dive into a review of that Australian production, let me point out two of my previous examinations of lesser-known Sam Neill films like the horror tale Possession (1981) and the Cold War espionage movie Enigma (1982).

On to Robbery Under Arms, the film is based on the Australian novel of the same name, which was published in serialized form in 1882 before being collected in novel form later in the decade. Robbery Under Arms is a monumental work of fiction Down Under and has been adapted several times since 1907 – a year after Australia’s silent movie The Story of the Kelly Gang.   

For readers who are not aware of this, Australia’s Gold Rushes beginning in the 1850s spawned a tableau like America’s Wild West in terms of outlaws and desert landscapes. Real life Bushrangers (Aussie outlaws of the deserts and bush regions) included Mad Dog Morgan, Ben Hall and of course Ned Kelly and his gang. Any fan of American Westerns would likely enjoy Bushranger flicks.

In Robbery Under Arms, Sam Neill stars as a fictional outlaw leader known by the alias Captain Starlight, the type of flashy name used by real-life Bushrangers like Midnight, Moondyne Joe, Captain Moonlite and others.

The Captain takes petty criminals Dick Marston (Steven Vidler) and his brother Jim (Christopher Cummins) into his gang after their first experiences at lawbreaking. Neill’s character warns the Marstons to choose carefully before joining his outfit, since there will be no going back to a normal life once they sign on with the notorious figure. A coin flip decides the course of the brothers’ lives.

Their pursuit of a life of crime is often contrasted with the life led by their friend George, who walks the straight and narrow and eventually rises to a certain level of prosperity. This makes the Marstons – including their father Ben, who also joins the Captain’s gang – ponder what might have been.

Sam Neill, however, gets the “fun” role as Robbery Under Arms depicts him as a larger-than-life rogue who remains a bit of a mystery to the Marstons even after years of plundering with him. Some Australian reviewers hate Captain Starlight’s ultimately unknowable nature but in truth Dick Marston is the only character who gets an arc and the Captain and the film’s events are all seen largely through Dick’s eyes.   

I enjoy this 1985 movie as an Aussie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with faint traces of The Wild Bunch‘s machismo and “code of the outlaw” elements. As Captain Starlight, Sam Neill is ballsy, irreverent, daring, a criminal mastermind and irresistible to the ladies. Audiences in 2026 may be most intrigued by the tight comrade-in-arms bond between the Captain and his top lieutenant – an Aborigine named Warrigal. 

The novel pays less attention to Warrigal (at right) except in a vague Tonto to Lone Ranger way, but this movie makes it clear that Sam Neill’s character views him as an essential member of the gang, able to guide them in eluding pursuit and surviving the incredibly harsh landscape in which they operate.

An early scene in which the gang has just completed its latest caper depicts Sam Neill and Warrigal defiantly drinking a mocking toast to a portrait of Queen Victoria which hangs in a pub. Plus there’s a feel of Robin Hood and his Merry Men hiding in Sherwood Forest during scenes of the bandits in their hideout called Terrible Hollow.  

Our main characters regularly outfight or escape lawmen and bounty hunters in between jobs.

The Marston Brothers find love interests among the strong ladies who coexist in the morally ambiguous circles that they do. Even the Captain himself becomes relatively monogamous with the lovely Gracey (Liz Newman).

With all that said, let’s cover the action and romantic outlaw lore in Robbery Under Arms. The Captain and his men pull off daring crimes like rustling 1,500 head of cattle in one raid and transporting them far, far away without getting captured. They carry out robberies of guarded gold wagon-trains in the Turon gold fields and elsewhere.   

The Captain and some of his men covertly attend the wedding of a pub owner’s daughter who has known the outlaws for years. They are incognito and act like everyday people at the wedding.

Sam Neill embodies devilish charm when he dances with the bride and points out that he is fulfilling his long-ago promise to dance with her at her wedding, and he’s doing it while they are both surrounded by “respectable” people and law enforcement officers who little dream the most wanted man in Australia is right in front of them.

A sometime ally and sometime enemy called Dan Moran leads his own outlaw gang but they are unchivalrous brutes. At one point Sam Neill leads his boys in crashing a home invasion committed by Moran and his thugs. They aren’t horning in on the loot, they’re just there to protect the ladies of the house from being ravished by the black-hearted Moran Gang.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

As the movie goes on, betrayal from within gets the Captain and his men captured. They pull off a spectacular escape incorporating a hot air balloon into Neill’s plan.

Lawmen step up their efforts to recapture the bandits and, feeling the walls closing in, the Captain leads his men in one last Big Caper hoping to then flee to America. I won’t spoil the ending for new viewers, but I will say in my opinion this is much better than Mick Jagger’s movie as Ned Kelly.

NOTE: For a first in Australian filmmaking, this was made simultaneously as a theatrical movie AND a television miniseries. If you enjoy the movie and want additional scenes with the charismatic Captain and the others you can check out the MUCH longer and slower-paced miniseries, which does a kind of Long Riders deep dive into the lifestyle of Bushrangers. 

Rest in peace, Sam Neill! You were one of a kind!