The Proposition [Blu-ray]

The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2006)

Imagine you're the middle brother of three, and the three of you have been an outlaw gang for so long no one remembers anything else. Now imagine that the local law captures you and your younger brother, and offers you a proposition: you have nine days to find and kill your older brother, or the law will hang your younger brother. What do you do?

Such is the situation that Charlie Burns (L. A. Confidential's Guy Pearce) finds himself in. The law, in the person of Captain Stanley (Sexy Beast's Ray Winstone) has younger brother Mike (Richard Wilson) in chains, and will only let him go if Charlie hunts down and kills his psychotic older brother Arthur (Danny Huston). As with most westerns, it's a simple plot; what you do with it is what separates the wheat from the chaff. And John Hillcoat has stamped himself a director for the ages with this, the best western since Dead Man a decade previous.

Australia seems an obvious place to make westerns; the great big sky just begs for the kind of stark, unforgiving cinematography that Australian directors have been utilizing for decades now. (Though, oddly, despite living in the land of the cinematographers, Hillcoat imported his from France-- Benoit Delhomme, who cut his teeth on such stunning movies as Cyclo.) It's dead perfect for westerns, as is the barren, inhospitable Outback landscape where The Proposition takes place; New Mexico ain't got nothin' on this. Add a script written by Nick Cave, who seemed to be channelling the spirit of Cormac McCarthy's earlier, bloodier western novels (oh, yeah, if you think The Road and No Country for Old Men were warped, check out Blood Meridian...). Cave has had a fascination with the culture of the American South for a long, long time now (note his excellent, terribly underrated novel ...And the [censored for amazon consumption] Saw the Angel), and since McCarthy originated in the South (while I'm talking books, McCarthy's southern-period novel Child of God is another must-read), it all comes together like one huge thunderclap. And what a storm it unveils. Cave, who also did the music for the film (with his Bad Seeds compatriot Warren Ellis-- no relation to the graphic novel writer), meshes the two in a remarkable way; being as much a music fan as a movie fan, I tend to pay a lot of attention to how well music goes with image, and it does so here in a way I'm not sure I've ever seen before. The film's music is as much a character as is Charlie, or Arthur, or the outback itself. (Okay, I can think of one other example, perhaps-- Peter Gabriel's score for The Last Temptation of Christ.) Cave created a thing of remarkable savagery and beauty here, and Hillcoat realized it as well as he could-- and that is very well indeed.

I haven't even scraped the tip of the iceberg of the reasons why you need to see this movie. There are so very many. Hillcoat, whose next project is, ironically enough, an adaptation of McCarthy's The Road (why Cave did not write the screenplay, I've no idea, but Guy Pearce is once again involved), has created what may be the perfect down under western here. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Flirting with a spot on my 100 best movies of all time list. **** ½

...but not "excellent" or "epic", I'm afraid.

What's nice is seeing a fresh Western-type movie, but unfortunately there is not quite enough character development or focus to label this as a fantastic overall achievement. The brutal opening scene which results in the gritty dialog between Captain Stanley and Charlie sets a tone for the movie that makes your guts churn but the dramatic intent doesn't maintain as the movie goes on. When it was over, I wasn't dying to watch it more than once.

On the good side, it was unpredictable, which is saying a lot when it comes to movies these days. Great cast but not used to their full potential. Great basis for a story with the script falling a little short. There is some beautiful cinematography of the Australian outback. The interior shots of Stanley and Martha's home were filled with vivid old-timey colors, including a gorgeously-shot scene of Emily Watson in the bathtub.

***Small Spoiler Alert***- and I'm sorry but I'm having a really hard time believing someone could survive a spear injury like Charlie got. That was tough to swallow and is an example of one aspect that made it difficult to take the drama as seriously as it was meant to be received.

I have traveled extensively in Australia and followed many of the Australian movies and the history of the country. In my opinion, while this is a tough subject, I think it exceptionally well done, and the background location certainly supports the subject material.

This is a movie about cycles of violence. The movie asks the question: What does it take to end cycles of violence? How does an eye for an eye ever end?

And the movie suggests some violence will not stop without relatively innocent men and women standing up against the people they love who are violent. This movie is not about good guys and bad guys. It is not about "us" and "them," where "them" is some foreign group. This movie is about the bad within our own community, our own family, and ourselves.

The Proposition or the question the movie asks is: Would you stop the violence if the person closest to you was the cause of the violence? And if you could not stop the violence, would you be willing to separate yourself from the person you love who is unjustifiably using violence and threats of violence?

This is a very graphically violent film. It does not shy away from focusing on the cruelties of violence. So, if you are a person who has trouble with violent images and getting them out of your thoughts and dreams, I caution you strongly.

This film is great. It is an important film. The film asks the viewer to weigh and compare threats and fears. It suggests that greater fears require greater measures, efforts, and consideration.

Each main character in this film is associated with another character who is using violence to achieve an objective. And each character decides whether or not to stay associated with the violent patterns.

No character "wins" in the end of this film. All of the characters become casualties to violence. And the question each viewer is left to answer for themselves is: Even though none of the characters are left unscarred by violence in the end, is the world better off because of the choices each character made? The answer to that question is not intended to be simple or clear. It is for each person to decide.

In 1880s Australia, a lawman makes a deal with a bandit to bring his murderous brother to justice. Simple story about the brutality of frontier life has direction, cinematography and characters reminiscent of the best 60s spaghetti westerns such as "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1969). Viewers may also enjoy the similar-styled "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" (2005) and "No Country for Old Men" (2007).