Synopsis
In 1880s Australia, a lawman offers renegade Charlie Burns a difficult choice. In order to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother, who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a terrible moral dilemma that can end only in violence.
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Cast
- Guy PearceCharlie Burns
- Ray WinstoneCaptain Morris Stanley
- Danny HustonArthur Burns
- John HurtJellon Lamb
- David WenhamEden Fletcher
- Emily WatsonMartha Stanley
- Richard WilsonMike Burns
- Noah TaylorBrian O'Leary
- Jeremy MadronaAsian Prostitute
- Jae MamuyacAsian Prostitute
Recommendations
- 80
The Hollywood Reporter
A fascinating, mythological western. - 80
Variety
Hillcoat and Cave have here found their most fertile ground yet for allegory-rich examinations of life and death in remote, pressure-cooker environments. - 80
Village Voice
The climactic Christmas Day dinner of dreadful retribution is a terrifying prospect, but for anyone with a yen for our great lost genre, it's also some sort of gift. - 80
L.A. Weekly
The Proposition is a very hard and harsh movie, but it also has a hypnotic, lyrical velocity. As Arthur, Huston exudes dead charisma. - 75
Christian Science Monitor
The veteran rock musician Nick Cave wrote the screenplay and John Hillcoat directed, both somewhat in thrall to Sam Peckinpah. The bonds of family are the centerpiece of this highly uneven, hyperviolent film. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
A sweat-slicked, near-abstract ballet of blood and sand. - 70
The New Yorker
It is one of those movies--Antonioni's "Red Desert" being the most flagrant example--that spend so much time brimming with moral and political suggestion that they almost forget to tell us what's actually going on. - 70
The New York Times
The cast of The Proposition is reason enough to see the film.
