Review of The Proposition (2005) by Jordan B — 10 Jun 2014

The Outback, as well as "The Proposition", is just as punishing and unforgiving as the men who roam it, and savagely entertaining. The film takes all the familiar ingredients of the Western with an Aussie spin, but unlike typical Western movies, it's dark, gritty, downbeat, and brutally violent.

Set in rural Australia in the late nineteenth century, Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) is a criminal living in the outback. He and his two brothers, Arthur (Danny Huston) and Mikey (Richard Wilson), are outlaws wanted for rape and murder. Arthur is a violent and dangerous cold-blooded sociopath, much more so than his siblings. The authorities capture Charlie and Mikey after a bloody shootout, and the brothers are handed over to Capt. Stanley (Ray Winstone), a British lawman sent to Australia to help bring order to the colonies. Capt. Stanley's proposition to Charlie is to gain pardon and - more importantly - save his beloved younger brother Mike from death by finding and killing Arthur within nine days in this brutal, scathing, hard-edged Western. Charlie scours the backwaters of Australia, but isn't certain if he can carry out his mission.

Captain Stanley is intent on taming Australia: he has been forced to move there with his delicate wife, Martha Stanley (Emily Watson), and apparently wants to make it an appropriate place for them to live. Bringing a bit of Britain to the Outback, trying to civilize and structure the grueling landscape, attempting the impossible. Note the well kept, modern home with the white picket fence in middle of the relentless Outback, completely out of place and downright comical.

A movie you cannot turn away from; it is so heartless and uncompromising, filled with disregard to innocence and civility. More blood is probably spilled in "The Proposition" than any Western I've ever seen and, and director John Hillcoat's lofty goal is to make art from incredible carnage. Men are stomped to death, whipped to their last breath, speared, shot at point blank; I could go on. The strength of "The Proposition" is its relentless moral ambiguity. Characters that would be heroic in more conventional Western movies show their darker sides. It's a tough an uncompromising story, but it's a superbly written, features terrific acting on all fronts with beautiful cinematography capturing the desolate landscape where the strongest survive.