The Proposition (2005)

John Hillcoat's The Proposition (2005) is a strange, heavily stylized Aussie Western. Its elliptical storytelling both fascinates and frustrates, sublimating thin story and characters to beautiful scenery and violence. Whatever its sins, it's certainly a unique experience.

English lawman Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) captures bushranger Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) after a violent shootout. Using Charlie's brother Mickey (Richard Wilson) as persuasion, Stanley offers Charlie a pardon if he'll track down homicidal brother Arthur (Danny Huston), hiding in the Outback. Charlie accepts, disgusted by Arthur's murder of an innocent family, but becomes ambivalent upon rejoining Arthur. Meanwhile, Stanley feels pressure from landowner Fletcher (David Wenham) and his wife (Emily Watson) to punish Mickey for Arthur's crime. The two sides lurch towards a confrontation, with Charlie's loyalty the wildcard.

The Proposition is certainly seductive. Hillcoat and photographer Benoit Delhomme successfully craft a mystical, otherworldly atmosphere. The glowing sunsets, sun-baked desert and forbidding mountains are breathtakingly unreal, more Picnic at Hanging Rock than The Searchers. This contrasts well with the muddy, ramshackle frontier towns, with Stanley and wife holding a Christmas dinner amidst the Outback. He mixes this scenic beauty with grisly violence, including a stomping death, machete decapitations and a bloody flogging. Throw a haunting Nick Cave/Warren Ellis score and you have a peculiarly resonant film.

While many Aussie Westerns play off American archetypes, The Proposition heavily deconstructs them. Captain Stanley is established as a tough lawman but folds under pressure, be it the callow Fletcher, a lynch mob or his vengeful wife. He doesn't even get the dignity of a showdown with Arthur. Charlie has several run-ins with Jellon Lamb (John Hurt), a wily bounty hunter who's a drunken racist. Hillcoat shows tension between "civilized" and "renegade" Aborigines, caught in a brutal "police action" with atrocities on both sides. Compared with this lot the conflicted Charlie and poetic Arthur seem almost heroic.

But The Proposition's mythic craftsmanship ultimately feels hollow. The characters act like Greek tragedians, each driving towards inexorable fates. They don't seem real or fully realized; they're too knowingly mythic, lacking in motivation or sympathetic qualities. Nick Cave's script lingers on gruesome set pieces more than story coherence, with interesting threads lost in the shuffle. For all his opaqueness Hillcoat falls back on cliche when convenient. The awkwardly contrived finale (not unlike 3:10 to Yuma) proves especially unsatisfactory.

Guy Pearce broods excessively well, all worried scowls and rangy physicality. Danny Huston (John Adams) steals the show as a chillingly philosophical psychopath. Emily Watson (War Horse) registers strongly in a thankless role while Aborigine actors David Gulpilli (Australia) and Tom E. Lewis shine. On the negative ledger, Ray Winstone is too passive to earn much sympathy, while David Wenham (Public Enemies) never rises above Snidley Whiplash levels. John Hurt (A Man for All Seasons) contributes a strange cameo.

If The Proposition isn't fully satisfying, it's still an intriguing movie. Certainly its combination of mystical atmosphere and savage violence leaves an impression.