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The Proposition (2006)
Rated: 18
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Theatrical Release: 10-03-2006
Synopsis: Australian director John Hillcoat first teamed up with singer Nick Cave on 1988's disturbing GHOSTS...OF THE CIVIL DEAD, for which Cave co-authored the screenplay and took a memorably brief acting role. The two reconvene for 2006's THE PROPOSITION, with Cave penning the screenplay and... Australian director John Hillcoat first teamed up with singer Nick Cave on 1988's disturbing GHOSTS...OF THE CIVIL DEAD, for which Cave co-authored the screenplay and took a memorably brief acting role. The two reconvene for 2006's THE PROPOSITION, with Cave penning the screenplay and providing a soundtrack written with Dirty Three member Warren Ellis. Cave's 19th-century tale begins with the proposition of the title, as Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) captures fugitive brothers Charley (Guy Pearce) and Mikey Burns (Richard Wilson) at a scene of bloody rape and murder. Informing Charley that he must kill his older brother, Arthur (Danny Huston), in order to be set free, Stanley drags Mikey to a decrepit jailhouse while he waits for Charley to carry out the deed. Hillcoat's Western reeks of the dry desert heat, with flies buzzing, temperatures soaring, and emotions spiraling out of control. As Charley reluctantly sets about his task, Hillcoat and cinematographer Benoît Delhomme create a mesmerizing vision of the Australian outback. The slow, meandering pace of the film is peppered with brutal jolts of unremitting violence, and there are fine performances from the entire cast, who are supported in small but significant roles from Emily Watson (BREAKING THE WAVES) and John Hurt (THE ELEPHANT MAN). Cave's screenplay is tight and focused, leaving little room for sentiment--or anyone for the audience to root for--by giving all his principal characters plenty of grimly undesirable personality traits. But it works perfectly, and in Winstone and Pearce, Hillcoat got his casting exactly right. Both actors give dizzying performances as two men unable to escape their personal demons, finding a tragic outlet only in ceaseless acts of aggression. A memorable feature that lingers long after the last frame of celluloid has flickered onto the screen, THE PROPOSITION establishes Hillcoat as a director of major gravitas. [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Richard Wilson, Danny Huston, Emily Watson
Screenwriter: Nick Cave
Producer: Chris Brown, Jackie O'Sullivan, Chiara Menage
Composer: Nick Cave, Warren Ellis
DVD Info
Release:
Jul 8, 2009
DVD Features:
- Special Packaging
- Widescreen
Audio:
- Dolby Digial 5.1 - English
- DTS - English
Reviews
A beautifully shot tracker’s western that brings the Fordian poles of garden and desert to bear on the bushrangers’ Outback, this is also a revenge drama of substantial horror.
Brutal, bloody and brilliant, this is superior filmmaking, and more evidence of the renaissance of the Australian film industry.
The spirits of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone are invoked in this horribly brutal outback western, directed by John Hillcoat and scripted by Nick Cave.
A strong story that's rather flattened by pretentious, over-serious filmmaking
Guy Pearce seems to have boiled himself down into some kind of Guy Pearce Concentrate. Winstone looks like he's been sculpted from the Australian wilderness around him.
a mythic exploration of the ever shifting frontier between savagery and civilisation in an unforgiving landscape.
Any movie that can cling to your memory with as much brutal power as this fantastic film is unquestionably a proposition worth taking.
The finest, strangest and most uncompromising western to hit screens since Unforgiven.
Cave's screenplay is masterful in taking the trappings of the western genre and transposing them to the Australian Outback. There's an ebb and flow to his writing and there's also the sense that tragedy is inevitable. He also manages to work in the dep
An Australian western without genre traditions in mind -- instead, their movie explores the complexities of moral relativity.
This Aussie horse opera doesn't so much present an exotic, bizarro version of the Wild West as the apotheosis of it.
It's as strong a Western as you're likely to see, at least since Clint Eastwood gave us Unforgiven 14 years ago.
The Proposition depicts male brutality, both within and without the confines of the law, in a beautifully measured way that doesn't kill the intensity of the narrative--wild contrasts, ironic similarities, and all.
Despite perpetual rumors of its demise as a genre, the Western is alive and well in the Australian outback.
Beauty, brutality, some sly social commentary... plus another sweaty, shirtless performance from Guy Pearce highlight this Aussie western from the pen of Bad Seed Nick Cave.
When it comes to condemning the ancient Western code of violence, this film should practice what it preaches.
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