Directed by John Hillcoat, this Aussie feature perfectly re-creates the charbroiled landscapes and cruel psychodrama of the old Sergio Leone westerns...

| Jul 14, 2022

Any movie that can cling to your memory with as much brutal power as this fantastic film is unquestionably a proposition worth taking.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2007

A beautifully shot tracker's western that brings the Fordian poles of garden and desert to bear on the bushrangers' Outback, this is also a revenge drama of substantial horror.

| Jun 24, 2006

Despite perpetual rumors of its demise as a genre, the Western is alive and well in the Australian outback.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 24, 2006

A visionary tale of a fragile civilizing impulse crushed by family loyalty and a lust for revenge in the vast Outback of the late 19th century.

| Jun 22, 2006

It doesn't offer much that hasn't already been said about lawless frontier towns, bonds between outlaws or the settling of the West.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 9, 2006

In-your-face combativeness is The Proposition's power, and for those of you who value your westerns, the effect is not unlike that of The Wild Bunch or Unforgiven.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 9, 2006

It's fitting that The Proposition is set Down Under, because in many ways, it's a reverse Western.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 8, 2006

An intense piece of wilderness ugliness that mixes family, honor, decency, revenge, racism and mindless blood lust in a manner that satisfies even if it never astounds.

| Original Score: B- | Jun 2, 2006

The squeamish should skip this film. But its recurring violence seems justified in terms of the story Cave sets out to tell and is up a familiar alley for the songwriter who has an album called Murder Ballads.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 26, 2006

Murder ballad for the slice-and-dice age, a film of sensitive artistry laced with gore.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 26, 2006

This is the crucial proposition The Proposition misses: To make us truly despair about the face of violence, it must be firmly attached to someone we know, and not merely blown off someone we don't.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 26, 2006

A near-masterpiece of mood and menace, and one that deserves to be seen on the largest screen possible.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 26, 2006

It's consistently compelling and thought-provoking. This one will stay with you, and despite its disturbing moments, you'll welcome it.

| Original Score: B | May 25, 2006

A revisionist western that brings its own brand of sanguinary honesty to the genre.

| May 25, 2006

Offering proportionate measures of raw violence and lyrical soliloquizing, the Peckinpah-influenced The Proposition is for those who prefer their western action unvarnished but immaculately framed.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 25, 2006

The movie gets at something primal in the pit of your stomach, something that speaks of loyalty and betrayal, of men's souls -- or the lack thereof.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | May 25, 2006

A pitiless yet elegiac Australian Western as caked with beauty as it is with blood.

| Original Score: A- | May 20, 2006

Over the top, Down Under.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 19, 2006

Have you read Blood Meridian, the novel by Cormac McCarthy? This movie comes close to realizing the vision of that dread and despairing story.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 19, 2006