Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Western!, September 23, 2006
Just finished watching The Proposition and I must say that it was everything that I had heard and more. It was a classic western with rich characterizations full of depth. The cinematography was beautiful and the story was fantastic. Ray Winstone and Emily Watson give powerful performances as the local Marshal/Sherrif and his pure and clean wife. Winstone is obsessed with bringing law and order to this frontier. This means bringing in a deadly gang of brothers lead by the evil oldest brother Arthur. He captures the middle and youngest brother and offers the middle brother Guy Pierce 'the proposition'. This is to save his young simple minded brother by killing his evil psychopath older brother.
I found this movie to be gritty, dirty and very violent. But this is a gritty,dirty and violent time. I would recommend this movie to any fan of westerns from any generation and also any fan of good solid drama. I bought it new and after seeing it must say that it was a fantastic choice and a GREAT piece of filmaking.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hang on for (to) Dear Life, January 9, 2007
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. Oddly, it works.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Brave Social Critique, February 3, 2007
The Proposition, written by songwriter, Nick Cave, uses the conventions of the Western genre to wrestle with ideas of good and evil (somewhat standard in the recent strain of revisionist Westerns) but more interestingly, uses the form to also indict the colonialist mission in Australia. The story is set in motion when a lawman bent on capturing three outlaw brothers makes a deal with the middle of the three - bring back the oldest one or the youngest, who he has in custody, will hang. The lawman, played by Ray Winstone, echoes the film's tagline, when he proclaims emphatically "this land will be civilized." Yet the remainder of the film makes it abundantly clear that what the European settlers have brought to the country is a far cry from civilization.
The contrast between the worlds of the colonialists and the colonized is effectively evoked in a scene where Ray Winstone's character tells his Aboriginal servant to be on his way as he settles on his porch, rifle in hand, waiting for the inevitably brutal attack from the outlaws that will follow. He wishes the Aboriginal man, "Merry Christmas," at which point the latter removes his shoes and socks at the gate of the yard, returns the good wishes with a hint of irony in his voice and walks away barefoot. The camera lingers on the shoes briefly, letting us know that we are meant to see something beyond the surface in this moment. One interpretation is that the shoes are a connection to "civilization" but in this case, a civilization that doesn't fit into the world it has been introduced to. Later another Aboriginal man, who is serving as a tracker for a group of lawmen, calls attention to the barbarism of the Europeans when he comments to one of the lawmen, "strange mob, you whities," as they observe the remaining members of the troop standing around a tree, trying to urinate on each other. Like Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, which also uses the Western genre to critique the treatment of indigenous people, The Proposition gives a voice to the oppressed and does it in a way that's not merely politically correct.
The Proposition is an incredibly violent yet somehow subtle film. Themes are suggested but (excuse the pun) nothing is black and white. Over 100 minutes the moral struggles of its complex characters are explored and time feels like it has passed too quickly. The film's violence feels essential to the narrative for lending verisimilitude but also for adding urgency to the stakes involved for its characters. Not a scene is wasted. The images are lyrical, the visual style, brisk and the cinematography, breathtaking. The casting and performances are all perfect, with Danny Huston and John Hurt being particularly outstanding.
This is a brilliant film that's been unjustly ignored, but not surprisingly so, considering its underlying critical stance. Rent, buy or borrow it, but make sure you see it.
The DVD extras (interviews with the cast, director and screenwriter) are also excellent, providing valuable insight into the background and themes of the film.
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