The Proposition
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Movie Reviews of The Proposition
Movie Review: The Most Beautiful Hell Hole on Earth ...
Summary: 4 Stars
... with a little help from cinematography, of course, is the barren Australian Outback, the real star of The Proposition. When the two older Burns Brothers sit on their mesa gazing at the sunset, stirred by its beauty, it's hard to fathom their viciousness. We know they're both killers, psychopaths, utter outcasts from a community that is already the fly-specked outer fringe of civilization. We know - because it's the premise of the film - that one brother might have to kill the other before the last frame. There are actually four brothers in the gang but the younger two are mentally limited. They're being pursued by 'the law' more assiduously than previously because of a raid on a homestead during which they murdered a whole family after raping a pregnant woman. They're not morally -- or aesthetically -- appealing, these Burns brothers, but the craft of film-making is such that we the audience feel more empathy for them than for the nasty customers -- drunken slob troopers, bounty hunters, and one well-dressed prig who must be the town banker -- who are howling for their blood. The only well-meaning chap in sight is Captain Stanley, a hired law enforcer who has brought his genteel wife to this badlands. The Captain dreams that it's his role to bring order to this frontier, but even he is morally compromised from the first scene, in which he makes the "proposition" that brother Charlie Burns should murder his older brother Arthur in order to save his younger brother Mikey from hanging on Christmas Day. Besides, what the frontier really wants of him is the extermination of the aborigines. The man hasn't a prayer! His role is truly quixotic.
Now, in some films, one might look for back-fill, -- causation, clues -- about how the Burns Brothers became outcasts, but there are no explanations to be had in The Proposition. Things are. Period.
There's a lot of the harrowing atmosphere of a Patrick White novel, "Voss" for instance, in this film. Patrick White was Australia's sole Nobel Prize for Literature winner, so far. Like the 'bounty hunter' who tangles with the Burns Brothers, Patrick White's characters are often haggard, filthy, desiccated men with backgrounds of education and class. They are, at the same time, more degenerate and more metaphysical than your average gunslinger in an American western shoot-em-up. As far as I know, the script of The Proposition isn't based on anything of White's, but it could have been. Or perhaps it's really Australia; it's the harsh history of Australia that infuses both Patrick White's novels and this film.
Still, I found myself not quite accepting the climax of the film, which I have to refrain from disclosing. I'm not quite desiccated enough myself to be content with "Things are". My reluctance to merely believe in an act that seems unbelievable is the reason for my deduction of a star from my rating.
Movie Review: Beautiful and brutal
Summary: 4 Stars
This film has often been compared to Eastwood's spare and dark UNFORGIVEN. There are certainly many similarities in tone. But if anything, there is even less redemption available at the end of this Australian western than at the end of that Oscar winner.
Simply put, Ray Winstone plays the equivalent of the "new sheriff" in a very small, dreary dusty "western" town in Australia. The worst bandits in his area, the Burns brothers, are his primary goal, and when he corners and captures the two youngest brothers, Mickey and Charley (Guy Pearce), he offers Charley a proposition. He and his simple younger brother will be released if Charley goes out and kills his psychopathic older brother Arthur. If not, Mickey will be hung on Christmas Day, a few days away.
The fallout from this simple proposition is bleak, bleak, bleak. The film is slow moving and takes time to establish tone and to let us savor the unbelievable Australian scenery. As John Hurt (as a bounty hunter) says, it's the most horrific place he's ever been. The scenery is beautiful (sunsets, colorful rocks) and brutal...long expanses of sand and scruff. But the slow pace is punctuated with moments of extremely graphic violence. Each bullet hole or knife wound (or spear wound) is painful to watch. I'm not sure when I last saw a movie that made violence appear so unpleasant, so painful and so ugly.
Everyone in the film is great. Guy Pearce...exceedingly grubby...is torn between deciding how to deal with one of his brothers inevitably dieing. Ray Winstone gives a rich performance...just when we think we've got this guy figured out, he shows another layer. And then another. He wins our sympathy finally. Emily Watson is his wife, and her performance is a litle colorless...it's the biggest weakness in the characterizations. Not her fault...she's just too passive to be entirely believed.
The best performance comes from Danny Huston (John's son, Anjelica's brother) as Arthur, the psycho. His character appreciates nature and poetry, but also raping and slow, painful murders. He's a conundrum that's never fully explained...but Huston is riveting. His oily, sweaty, dirty face is etched with emptiness...I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but trust me.
Other nice touches include an interesting soundtrack (co-written by Nick Cave, who wrote the script) and lots of stuff focusing on the uneasy melding of the "white" man and aboriginies. This adds an extra layer of sadness, and of danger, to all the proceedings.
I would give the movie 4.5 stars, if I could. It doesn't quite reach 5 (the pace is just occasionally over-indulgent...a couple of semi-important characters just drop from the story), but it's very compelling, very brutal filmmaking. NOT FOR KIDS!!!
Movie Review: A very bloody Western too hard to swallow...
Summary: 4 Stars
Set on an arid desert and sun-baked continent, during the late 1800's British settlement days, Pearce stars as Charlie Burns, one of three brothers that make up the notorious criminal Arthur Burns...
At the opening credits Charlie and his younger brother the 14-year-old Mikey are captured after a bloody shoot out with regional Captain Stanley in the aftermath of a brutal rape and murder... The decent captain is after their eldest brother Arthur described as 'the beast,' and is prepared to do just about anything to get him...
Thus Stanley lays out Charlie an unholy bargain: While Mikey stays in his custody, in jail, Charlie must find, kill or return Arthur or his teenaged brother will be hung on Christmas Day... He has nine days to do so...
Charlie eventually finds his brother but is left with one choice... He must decide if he can live with his decision to either kill Arthur or let Mikey be executed...
John Hillcoat's characters not only strike us with their emotions of grief and pain, or their passion of hate but they are presented in their real states that sway down hopelessness, denial, pity and firm belief...
Pearce combines a touch of kindness to Charlie's character, but it's a touch that keeps out of the way any love... It's, in essence, only enough to add a decisive influence on his personality that makes him unpredictable...
Danny Huston is magnificent as Arthur Burns... His deeply intelligence and totally brutal character is captured in a very good sense...
Richard Wilson, Mikey is given little to do beyond being frightened and horrorized...
Winstone is amazing in the role of the army officer who wants to civilize the place... We feel how his nerves are about to break... He imprisons his wife Martha for safety and protection caring at the same time about her delicate sensibilities...
Emily Watson is absolutely stunning as the fragile woman whose gentleness captures convincingly the character of Emily, the innocent wife who cares about her husband, her house and her perfect "garden" but her way of life is so far away from the reality of her surroundings...
John Hurt gives an interesting performance as the deranged bounty hunter...
"The Proposition" is too violent, too dirty, too bloody, and too barbaric to be forgotten so easily...
Movie Review: Intense & Disturbing
Summary: 4 Stars
The Australian outback plays a pivotal role in this movie set in the 19th century Australia when law is far in between. The story is simple enough where Guy Pierce's character is given a proposition to kill his brother (leader of the pack that allegedly massacres a family and raping a woman pregnant with a child) within nine days so that he shall be given a pardon & to redeem his younger brother. And so the journey begins. There is a glimpse of racism of the time (and still does) when there's a discussion of Darwin and how ridicule the white people felt when they are compared to monkeys and to Aborigines. The Police Chief with a constant headache is fervently trying to resolve the crime properly by stamping down upon the Gang whilst his Superior is keen to dispense quicky justice to appease the citizens. This movie succeeds in creating a feeling of living on the edge and unpleasantness. Swarms of fly are ever present, intense heat, loneliness of the outback. Headed by outstanding casts such as Emily Watson, John Hurt, Dany Houston, they portray a hostile outback where everyone fends for themselves and perhaps the desolation is driving people to madness &/or desolation. This is an outstanding movie that deserves to be seen on the big screen. Nick Cave's music accompaniment to the Proposition really is rather appropriate indeed. Overall, a very comprehensive movie that should have a bigger commercial success. Here, Guy Pierce truly shows his versatility in different genres. Highly recommended.Movie Review: Useful Spoilers: Reveals the plot of the movie which you might not get watching it
Summary: 4 Stars
There is a fundamental problem with this movie: nobody gets it. What none of the other reviewers have realized is that neither Mikey nor Charlie had anything to do with the murder which spurs the plot. The sheriff caught them to get to the oldest brother who murdered the family and raped the wife with his gang. Charlie and Mikey had nothing to do with anything except that they were related to a criminal. This movie is not great because it does a terrible job of explaining that, which changes your entire view of the film. The sheriff feels guilty throughout the story for using innocents, his men talk about his weakness behind his back, and Mikey is beaten to death because the sheriff will not tell anyone about his dirty little trick. At one point his men say that if anyone ever found out what really happened to the murdered family they would be in a lot of trouble. Which is because the person they caught didn't do it. It makes the movie better if you know all this from the beginning. My boyfriend and I didn't put it together until after we finished it. Apparently, most people never do. In a well-constructed film, this failure to make clear one of the main plot points is pretty serious. Otherwise, it was exactly what a modern western should be.