The Proposition

Plot: The titular deal is offered to the 2nd of the Murderous Outlaw Burns Brothers,Charley, by English soldier Captain Stanley: Ride out to the outback, find his vicious elder sibling Arthur and kill him, and in return, he will not hang his younger one Mikey come Christmas day.
Moral conflicts ensue,as Charley is in no mood to off big brother once he finds him, and back home townsfolk bay for the younger Burns blood as Stanley's concience stand in their way....

A slow,languorous pace, lots of wide-eyed vista shots of the arid Australian landscape, close-ups of dirty,unshaven faces,brief bursts of intense violence followed by looooong inert mood-setting scenes of drama punctuated by furtive glances, minimalist pseudo-intellectual discourse scored to dirge-sounding bush ballads: Welcome to the Arty Western, done Down Under style.

It's the sort of movie where scenes of a man being flogged is inter-cut to one of another singing "Peggy Gordon" ,said scene meant to underscore the point that it's not just about violence you see, it's also a lyrical medidation of it; But then.. you get a close up shot of a bare-back ripped to pieces after the whipping and the Whipper actually wringing blood off the instrument and you wonder... why not stick with loving close-ups of the flogging exercise a la Passion of The Christ and leave the Celtic ballads in the new Corrs CD?

I'm in mixed minds about this gritty,brutal but nevertheless well made Antipodian Western. It's a fairly effective study in morality, much like Eastwood's Unforgiven. But where that Oscar Winner had a plodding Mid-Section which was compensated by a powerfully charismatic star-cast, The Proposition often mutes it's equally talented thespians. Guy Pierce, the so-called "hero" of the piece is so low key he only comes alive in the bloody climax. Danny Huston as the Villain spends far too much time in philosopher mode. The extremely talented Emily Watson(as Stanley's wife) is a study of imploding grief and dread when the character could have used at least one Serious Outburst Scene. It's up to Ray Winstone to carry the show, and he does so admirably. His Captain Stanley, who comes across as the villain in the movie's opening scene(especially after a brutal pistol-whipping he delivers) is a wonderful study in conflict, his sense of a Man on a Mission to civilize the barbaric Outback slowly but surely compromised by his resolute stand on Justice, of being a Gentleman who keeps his word,even if the promise was made to criminals, a promise which the town folk and his superior ( a slimy David Wenham, iradicating the dashing Faramir in LOTR once and for all) have no intention of letting him keep.

The struggle to maintain civilized behaviour in a brutal land, as driven home Sledgehammer style, by a scene depicting Stanley and wife, dressed in their finest, sitting down to a Christmas dinner,table replete with the finest cutlery, and exchanging pleasant talk in polished tones, contrasted against the barren landscape outside their homes populated by unwashed and grimy folk and impending violence, is an apt theme for a revisionist Western. But one wishes that these tough 'ole boys would tone down the pontificating a notch, strap on their pistols and let their bullets do the talking.

Listening to John Hurt's erudite bounty hunter gas-bagging about Darwin's Theory of Evolution, one does wonder, if guys really talked as much as these fellers back in those Bad Old Days, they would probably have been the first lot be culled under Nature's Grand Natural Selection Plan, gently nudged along by an Aboriginal spear or two.

A little less Bark and a lot more Bite would have made this Proposition more palatable....