The Proposition
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Movie Reviews of The Proposition
Movie Review: A hellish and uncompromising journey through Australia's lawless past
Summary: 5 Stars
When I first saw John Hillcoat's film The Proposition I was literally shocked and dumbstruck with what I had just witnessed. As a long-time aficionado of the horror genre I could say that part of me has become desensitized to onscreen violence and nothing really shocks me. Even though I've seen films with more violence throughout its running time, The Proposition just had a heavy sense of despair, moral ambiguity, and a Miltonian feel throughout. The film felt like how it would be if one accepted an offer from one of the damned to stroll down to the Nine Circles of Hell. As much as I didn't want to accept that offer the curiosity of what I might see won out. That's how I was able to sit through the entirety of Hillcoat's ultra-violent and nihilistic tale of lawless and amoral individuals in the untamed wilderness of 1880's Australian Outback.
I must agree with film critic Roger Ebert when he said The Proposition seemed to mirror another dark and violent tale. Hillcoat's film shares so much the same themes and tone as Cormac McCarthy's brutal novel, Blood Meridian, that one almost wondered if the film was adapted from McCarthy's great novel. But similarities aside, Hillcoat and Nick Cave's (director and writer respectively) film can clearly stand on its own two bloody legs.
The film begins with a bloody siege and shootout and we're soon introduced to two of the three Burns' brothers. We soon find out that both brothers, Charlie (played by Guy Pearce)and Mikey (played by Richard Wilson) are outlaws wanted for a multitude of heinous crimes with a recent one the senseless rape and murder of the Hopkins family. One Capt. Stanley (Ray Winstone) who acts as law in this particular area of the Outback. He's gives older brother Charlie a proposition. He'll spare the younger brother's life from the hangman's noose if Charlie finds their older brother Arthur (played with Kurtz-like menace by Danny Huston) and kills the outlaw leader. The quest is set as Charlie accepts and sets out to find his brother. Whether Charlie will go through with killing his older brother Arthur is one thing the audience won't find out until the final minutes of the film. Even though there's no love-lost between Charlie and Arthur, there's still the traditional bond of family that makes Charlie's quest a complex one.
We realize early on that Charlie is very protective of his simpler, younger brother Mikey and would do anything to save his life. Guy Pearce does a great performance as the conflicted and brooding Charlie Burns. There's a quiet intensity in Pearce's performance. He's pretty quiet through most of the film, but one could feel the palpable rage just roiling beneath his brooding countenance. Pearce's Charlie is one who is only a trigger away from exploding into outright violence. Charlie is definitely a child and creation of the lawless Outback the film is set in.
Arthur Burns on the other hand is introduced as an almost warrior-poet who would watch the sun set and spout poetry as easily as gun down an innocent or slice a man's throat without missing a beat. Danny Huston does a bravura performance as the charismatic and wholly amoral Arthur. His performance easily matches that of Pearce's scene for scene. Another performance that I must point out as being very strong in the film is Ray Winstone as Capt. Stanley, the Ahab of the tale with his obsession to bring civilization to the lawless Outback and to bring Arthur Burns to ultimate justice even if it means dealing with the lesser evil that is Charlie Burns.
The Proposition will be talked about alot for its unflinching look at violence onscreen. Though there's been films that have more violence per hour than Hillcoat's film, but the extreme brutality of the killings, maimings and rape in The Proposition has such an air of realism to it that one cringes at every gunshot wound and knife slashing. Like Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, The Proposition's scenes of depravity makes one want to rush into the shower and cleanse off the dirt, grime and stink of the film. It's in this unflinching and realistic portrayal of death and violence that the film shares alot with McCarthy's Blood Meridian. The images are difficult to watch, but our curiosity makes us look through squinted eyes to see the full breadth of the violence. In time, just through the audiences acceptance of the oncreen violence do we soon become complicit in whats going on the screen.
It is a shame that The Proposition had such a limited release in the US. I think this film would've done as well as Eastwood's Unforgiven in giving the audience a different, darker side of the Old West mythology (though its really the Australian Old West). John Hillcoat has crafted himself a brutal and nihilistic film that's very hard to watch but also difficult to ignore. The Proposition is a film I highly recommened people see in the theaters before it disappears, but failing that they should search out for the dvd once its released in that medium. This film is that good.
Movie Review: Gritty, honest and endearing, a one of a kind movie experience...
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not a fan of the Western; in fact I'm so not a fan that I had to be practically forced to watch this film despite the fact that I love both Danny Huston and Ray Winstone. That said, `The Proposition' is so perfect it film that it breaks my top five of the year. It's so engrossing, so breathtaking and so blisteringly real that one can't help but become completely invested into the story, the plot and the characters. The performances by the entire cast are above and beyond brilliant, and the direction is superbly orchestrated. Just about every facet of this film is brilliance, from the score to the cinematography to the captivating screenplay.
The plot follows a group of murderous brothers, Arthur, Charlie and Mike Burns who kill for the pure thrill of it. When Charlie and Mike are captured Charlie makes a deal with the Captain for his and his younger brothers life. Charlie is asked to kill his oldest brother Arthur, the mastermind behind the brother's murderous rampages. He accepts the offer, and Mike is left in the Captain's hands until the job is done. This is the proposition that starts the film and as the film progresses it builds upon each character so well, effortlessly drawing the audience into the plight of each. As Charlie travels to find his brother he faces the decision of whether to slay him or join forces with him to overtake the Captain, and in Charlie's absence the Captain is left to battle his conscience and the strong will of the townsfolk who want to exact revenge for the rapes and murders on young Mike who it appears really had little to do with the happenings in the first place.
What really sets this masterpiece apart from almost every other film in recent memory is the commanding strength of the entire cast. This truly is an actor's film, and each and every actor does such an orgasmic job with their performances. Guy Pearce, an actor I never really developed a liking for, delivers his finest performance, very understated and nuanced and subtle performance. In fact what makes each performance here so brilliant is that amidst the brutal and bloody backdrop each actor relishes in the subtleties of their characters providing the perfect compliment for the rampage taking place within scenes. Emily Watson also delivers one fine performance as Captain Stanley's gentle wife, tortured herself by the aftermath of the Burns brother's disastrous actions and plagued by her good soul yet vengeful spirit. Danny Huston, who plays Arthur Burns, delivers his finest performance to date. This guy is truly one to watch. He's given three of my favorite supporting performances in the past few years (`Birth', `The Constant Gardener' & `The Proposition') but here is where he finally grabs hold of his character and delves into his soul, developing someone truly evil, just completely and utterly infectious.
But, that said, his performance doesn't even come close to the brilliance that is Ray Winstone. As Captain Stanley, Winstone evokes so much emotion, so much effortless truism. When his character is first introduced he appears to ruthless, so harsh and in my eyes he appeared to be the outright villain of the film, but within moments it was made apparent that he was in fact the moral center of this film. As he battles with his own conscience versus that of the town, and even that of his usually supportive wife we can read the frustration and inner agony writhing over his face. As his wife pleads with him to take vengeance, as the town presses further down on him, as he watches in complete detachment the fruits of the town's persistence we can see this mans inner turmoil taking its toll. What Ray Winstone does here is what every actor should hope to one day accomplish, and the fact that he was snubbed by the Academy in favor of mediocre work by DiCaprio and the sentimentally nominated O'Toole is just ridiculous and downright aggravating. Forget Whitaker, Winstone gives hands down the best male performance of 2006.
So, in the end `The Proposition' may very well be my favorite film of 2006. I'm still weighing out my final opinions but it's definitely cracked my top five and that's not something I would have ever expected. What John Hillcoat has brilliantly been able to accomplish is create a epic moving drama set in the west complete with breathtaking action, brutal violence and above all else and beating heart that demands the audience emotional investment. As I have already mentioned, `The Proposition' is downright cinematic perfection, from breathtaking direction, effortless camerawork, brilliant scripting and some of the most endearing performances to date all coming together to create a movie experience you won't soon forget, or therefore regret.
Movie Review: One of the Best Films of the Decade-- A Masterful Stunner!
Summary: 5 Stars
Note, this is not a review, but instead is a thematic overview of this often brillant film:
In the final frame of "The Proposition" there is a contrast between the film's narrative meaning and the meaning behind the film, in which a character asks in their final breath in the last line of dialogue, "What`s next?" When taken into account these themes in the film, one can not help but see this difference-- the sun will rise to another day, but to what purpose for humanity-- as nothing is definitive, human life can be thought as nothing more than an experiment, especially considering the history of human self-destruction. It asks the audience to question if human existence is nothing more than a flash in the pan, or does it have a purpose in galaxy's ultimate design? Now, this does not at all mean there should be belief in a higher power. The film makes a case that the human race will survive or fail due to how the race carries out the means for achieving fulfillment.
"The Proposition," however, often times has a more pessimistic, even bitter, philosophy with its thought that we cannot break away from or ancestry begotten by animal, or the nature of survival of the fittest-- and though this notion is looked down on in the film by one of the characters-- the statement also comes with a sense of satire. It can also be interpreted as the belief that many humans are too caught up in there own sense of being, in the way that they believe they were indeed created individually by a higher power-- not even fathoming that we may just be the next step on the ladder in evolution, much like the cavemen; never bringing up that it can also can be "god's evolution," as well.
The film, which takes place in the 1880's Australian Outback, starts with a barrage of gunfire, blood spurting, and humans drawing their last breath, and the realization comes to the viewer that "The Proposition" is a western from the pen of Nick Cave, who is the legendary-and-literate Post-Punk/ Goth rocker of The Birthday Party, The Bad Seeds, and Grinderman. We then fade into: the actual proposition being made in the movie, as it follows outlaw, Charlie Burns (Guy Pierce,) and it being given to him by Captain Stanly ( Ray Winstone) after his younger brother Mike ((Richard Wilson) and he is captured by the Captain in a shootout after their band killed a local family. See, the Captain tells Charlie that he must find his psychopathic older brother, Arthur, (Danny Huston,) and kill him, because if he does not he will hang Mike, in nine days, which is also Christmas day.
It is with this triage at its core that the film's themes lie in the Darwinian theory of evolution, survival of the fittest, and that belief that though humans are derived from the apes-- our Neanderthal impulses are still one and the same. Yet, despite this concept, this side of the narrative of the film is not as interesting as it could be, nor is it as suspenseful or emotional at its core--simply, lacking the dramatic arc that could be achieved. Yet, there is another more interesting parallel story to make up for it in the form of the Captain Stanly character's reluctance to show or tell his wife Martha (Emily Watson) the horrors that surrounded her simple, upper-class life.
Apart from the morality play and survival aspects, a social commentary points out the upper class's illusion to the harsh and bitter world of urban society. There are many scenes in the film that show that those who are in the dark to the harsh underbelly of the world, whether they choose it or do not, are more ignorant to those who live with violence and persecution daily. This theology is shown in a whipping scene in which the mob of people who want an accomplice to a murder to be lashed to death for his crimes find that this man hurts like any other. Yet, he is but a boy, so who is the real monster? It should also be pointed out that all the characters of the film, even the psychotic rapist-murderer Arthur, (who holds the family unit as a high value) are neither good nor bad. The characters do what they feel is right, and especially what fits their method of survival and fulfillment. The film points out the facts, that all humans do this to some degree.
As, even more than a hundred years later, and even across the world in America, the newspapers and television programs account that the human race may be doomed-- and "The Proposition" will surely be the film to play at the funeral.
9.5 (Out of 10 in 0.5 increments)
Movie Review: Hang on for (to) Dear Life
Summary: 5 Stars
Coming up with any description for `The Proposition' will be precarious for deterring an audience, and that's a shame. Startlingly brutal, this film takes place in the Outback of Australia during the 1880's, so it really should be called an Eastern, rather than a Western. A revenge story with a vengeance, Captain Morris (Ray Winstone) vows, "I will civilize this land." He's the British equivalent of the partakers of Manifest Destiny and the typical new sheriff, trying to bring law and order in the dry, forsaken land. His iron hand makes the cure seem worse than the lawless contagion.
His obsession is to kill or obtain Arthur Burns. After a huge shoot out, he has Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) captured. He makes him a proposition. To spare his younger brother, he must find and kill his older brother, Arthur, within nine days, before the arrival of Christmas*. We're never shown what the Burns brothers allegedly did, but, unlike the horror we're presented with for nearly two hours of the movie, it is too horrible to show. (They're accused of raping a pregnant woman.) Capt. Morris does everything to get his man. Besides putting his brother in a desperate situation, he lets a rapist go and kills a native aborigine just to name a couple of moral compromises. Just when we think the Captain is the pit of established barbarism, we see him cry when he is denounced by an even tougher superior who chastises him for his desperate rampage of justice.
The film goes back and forth to all of the major fronts: The Burns' family in their exile, the aborigines, who keep a native tradition of reciprocity for slain tribal members; and the law and order head office. All are victims of terrible violence. Gruesome to the fore, the acts of bottles smashing on heads, toes blown to a stub, public floggings, and stranglings--just to name a few--nearly reinvent violence. Presented with graphic detail, anguished writhing, and blood-curdling screams, 'The Proposition' can hardly be accused of glorifying violence. All but the most perverse will find the whole movie a deterrent that makes one hold on to dear life. Indeed, the dialogue is so beautifully eloquent, we feel like we are often given the modern equivalent of Shakespeare. Amazingly, it never comes across as artificial or out of character, even when they speak poetically about the beauty of nature and the fragility of existence. And it's all done in the spare laconic Western tradition. The characters still retain their gritty determination as well as their rough Aussie and Irish immigrant dialects.** Some of the best, reflective scenes are heard with the echoed whispering of Charlie's innermost thoughts.
`The Proposition' for all its bloodshed is an excellent adventure with enough time to pause and reflect on the beauty and brevity of life and nature when it's at its dearest. Despite all the gore, the violence is hardly a Western arcade. It's not just your typical shoot out at the Queensland Corral. We can almost feel their pain and are presented a tragedy of unrelenting vengeance and violence. Besides excellent tension brought from the acting, the cinematography and the directing are awesome, making us gasp, like watching the cinematography of the Outback sunsets. Inspiring and remarkably well constructed, 'The Proposition' is a must-see for movie buffs.
*Remember that Christmas is just after the summer solstice arrives Down Under, so it is swelteringly hot.
**It could have been "To be or not to be, mate!" but it's not like that. It oddly works.
Movie Review: One of the best movies of the past ten years.
Summary: 5 Stars
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