Blackt.net

Rating: B

I wanted to love this film. It’s a western, after all.  It’s got a great cast, stunningly beautiful cinematography, an original score (and screenplay) by Nick Cave, brutal violence, and takes place in 1880s Australia.
The Proposition starts out with a bang…literally.  The film opens with a fast-paced shootout that’s loud as fuck, with bullets flying everywhere and people getting shot up left and right. It’s bloody, it’s sweet.  In the middle of the gun fight are two brothers: the older, wiser one with devastatingly gorgeous cheek bones Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) and the younger, innocent Mikey Burns (Richard Wilson).  They eventually surrender to the outside forces, who turn out to be some sort of Australian Police led by the weathered and good natured (and British) Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone).  After delivering a swift pistol whip to Mikey’s face, Stanley offers Charlie a proposition (get it?).  This proposition is that he will offer Charlie immunity from the law if he tracks down and kills his older brother Arthur (Danny Huston), who as it turns out, is a murdering, raping son of a bitch.  But then again, who wasn’t back then?  Anyways, Charlie accepts the offer, and Stanley takes Mikey prisoner.  I only tell you all this because it wasn’t particularly easy to understand the first 5 minutes of the film, not only because of the thick-ass Australian/British/Irish accents, but because they were kind of whispering, and the combination of the two was brutal.

So there you have the film, in a nutshell, and well, there’s a lot more violence to come.  Director John Hillcoat and former collaborator screenwriter-musician extroardinaire Nick Cave have fashioned The Proposition a film out of the Peckinpah book of westerns.  Unfortunately, a Peckinpah western it is not.  Now is it unfair to compare? Sure, but it’s impossible not to compare and ultra-violent nihilistic western to those who have come before (and done better).  The problem, is not only that several scenes drag a hell of a lot, but that half the time you’re unsure of character motivation or don’t even have a good idea of the character’s themselves.  And well, it’s not exactly an edge-of-the-seat type film, as it wasn’t hard for the (saavy) film-jerk I am to know how the film was going to end far before it did.  But I suppose I’m being too harsh.  Because after all, there’s a lot to like about this film.  The cinematography by Benoit Delhomme (who coincidentally was the D.P. on a film I just rented) is extremely gorgeous.  Every scene is either a) a sunset scene or b) a mid-day scene featuring a blown-out type look while keeping it colorful somehow.  Granted, the sunset scenes get a little excessive (yes, it’s a metaphor, but jesus, cut it out).

I really did want to love this film.  But I didn’t.  I would recommend it, however.  It’s everything I thought it would be yet something (the story?) doesn’t exactly add up.  That’s fine.  There’s enough pistol whipping, shooting, knifing, spearing, swearing, and so on to make it more than an enjoyable western.  If anything,  this film makes me anxious to see the next efforts from both Cave and Hillcoat.  With Emily Watson as the only woman in this film, John Hurt as Jellon Lamb. [Rated R. 2005. 104 Minutes. First Look Studios]

[ Guy Pearce as Charlie Burns. God damn, he’s
chiseled.]