The Proposition

The Proposition is one of the best movies I have seen this year. It’s a western, true life, dirty, gritty Western with and excellent story, acting, and landscape. I haven’t seen a Western I have liked this much since Unforgiven or Silverado. It’s that caliber of a movie.

In The Proposition, Guy Pearce is Charlie Burns. He and his brother Mike are caught by Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) and given a proposal – hunt down and kill his older brother Arthur in order to gain a pardon and save the life of his younger brother Mikey. Arthur is the leader and mastermind behind the Burns gang, responsible for attacking the Hopkins farm, raping Mrs. Hopkins, and murdering the entire family. Capt. Stanley’s wife, who was a close friend of Mrs. Hopkins, doesn’t accept the proposal. The tensions surmount as the community cries for justice, the relationship between husband and wife become strained, and Charlie hunts for his brother in the Australian outback. Will Charlie kill his brother; will the town have their own justice?

The screenplay was written by Nick Cave, and while I like his music I was very surprised that he could write a screenplay so amazing. The complicated relationships between a husband and wife, a brother and a brother, a town and its leaders are so well written. Everything about this movie feels real, from the flies buzzing people’s faces, the heat rising in the desert, the blood and violence of carving a life out in the rough Outback. There are some scenes that are so iconic that they stick in your brain, like the scene of Stanley and his wife having Christmas dinner, the china set out, the turkey ready for carving, or the roses outside of their home, fighting for life in the arid desert, or the Aborigine leaving the homestead and returning to the land, removing his shoes at the gate.

I can't recommend this movie enough. What a brilliant, bleak, beautiful film.

Rating: 5 Purrs for perfection – Guy Pearce excellent as always , and a gritty, dirty, down to earth Western