Sporting an excellent cast and an intriguing premise, The Proposition is a western that will have you questioning whose side you are on and why.
If you were to ask me what my least favorite film genres are, my first answer would be horror (because they legitimately scare me and I don’t like that) and my second would probably be westerns. I don’t have anything against them (I love Django Unchained) and I’m always willing to give one a go, but I find that there is usually a monotony in the color palette and storylines. How could there not be? Westerns take place in frontier towns in desert areas and typically involve the people that live there, so there’s a limit to what can happen. That said, I appreciate when one reaches further.
The Proposition is set in the late 1800s in Australia, where Captain Morris Stanley is trying to clean up the local town. Taking Mikey Burns into custody, Stanley tells the leader of the crew, Mikey’s brother, Charlie Burns, that if he can find and kill their older brother, Arthur Burns, within 9 days, he will set Mikey free. Arthur is living in the hills and is accused of the rape and murder of a local woman, a friend of the Captain’s wife.
For starters, the color palette of this movie has a greater variety than I was expecting. While most people are living off the land and working with their hands, the Captain and his wife are clearly from a more “refined” society. She is quiet, but definitely a fish out of water in her beautifully tailored green dress surrounded by red curtains.
There is a great cast, with Guy Pierce (as Charlie) and Danny Huston (as Arthur) being standouts. I also loved John Hurt’s wild, drunk, and fierce bounty hunter and I wish he’d had more screen time. John Hurt is a gift to any film.
I was slightly less enamored with how much of the story focused on the Captain and his wife. Ray Winstone and Emily Watson are great in the roles and the relationship seems underlyingly complicated, but I very much wanted to see more of Charlie’s hunt for Arthur and the dynamic between the brothers. You do get that payoff, but I would have happily traded some of one for more of the other.
One interesting dynamic is that you get the feeling that most of the characters have questionable morals. No one is necessarily “good” or “bad” and there are a few exciting scenes that highlight that feeling. The one that will haunt me the most involved a beautiful Irish song being sung by one man while, elsewhere, violence was being perpetrated on another. It was a gorgeous, if painful, directorial sequence.
The first two acts of The Proposition felt a little leisurely. I believe that’s probably intentional, as things don’t move quickly in a western setting, but I found the pacing fairly slow and a bit tedious. Once you got to the last act, though, things picked up.
Overall, The Proposition is a well crafted film with great actors and a few exceptional sequences. It’s definitely worth watching and, if you are a huge fan of westerns in general, you’re going to absolutely love this one.
Runtime: 104 minutes
Motion Picture Rating: R
Languages Spoken In The Film: English
Should You Watch It? Yes
Did I Cry? Nope
My Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
Available: To rent on Prime Video or may be available for free on other streaming platforms
If you were to ask me what my least favorite film genres are, my first answer would be horror (because they legitimately scare me and I don’t like that) and my second would probably be westerns. I don’t have anything against them (I love Django Unchained) and I’m always willing to give one a go, but I find that there is usually a monotony in the color palette and storylines. How could there not be? Westerns take place in frontier towns in desert areas and typically involve the people that live there, so there’s a limit to what can happen. That said, I appreciate when one reaches further.
