The Proposition
Studio: First Look Pictures
Rated: R
Cast: Guy Pearce (II), Emily Watson, John Hurt, Ray Winstone, David Wenham
Director: John Hillcoat
Screenwriter: Nick Cave
Music Score: Nick Cave, Warren Ellis
WorkNameSort: Proposition, The
Our Rating: 4.00
Based on the diminishing artistic returns of his later records, the prospect of an entire film written by ex-goth poster boy Nick Cave didn’t exactly titillate. And so much for expectations: As directed by music video vet John Hillcoat, Cave’s vision of 1880s Australia as outlaw inferno becomes an unforgettable exposed raw nerve of a film. It features Ray Winstone as a Brit frontier cop whose brute efforts to bring civilization to the outback, and justice to a cultured psychotic outlaw (Danny Huston) and his ‘familyâ?� (including brothers played by Guy Pearce and Richard Wilson), result in a blood-drenched murder ballad of ass-backward Darwinism. Although suggestive of a sensibility fusion between El Topo‘s weird-West surrealism and The Wild Bunch‘s Western gore-machismo, The Proposition is pretty much sui generis, a preconception-shattering movie that mood-destabilized audiences will leave muttering, ‘Jesus, that was fucked upâ?� ‘ in the best sense of the phrase. (R; opens Friday, June 9, at AMC Pleasure Island 24, 407-298-4488; AMC Loews Universal 20, 407-354-5998; and Muvico Pointe 21, 407-926-6843)
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2006.