everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Absolutely brilliant

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A masterclass performance from Guy Pearce, who lets his eyes tell you his story rather than his words as he roams a harsh desolate landscape. Violence and chaos is the rule of the land, where the cops are no better than the crims and a bullet is the only one telling the truth. Danny Huston also gives his best ever role, a character actor who is no household name but defines his career here. Beautiful score from Nick Cave who backs up his debut screenplay with haunting whispers and violin cues signalling the bleakness of a no holds barred time in history. All the supporting roles are effective, especially Ray Winstone as the corrupt and ruthless police captain. The cinematography is the best i've ever seen in an Australian film, where colour and light are presented at their most elegant and stunning, the desert, the town, the rocks, the trees, light up your eyes and stay in your mind. I would love to visit the shooting locations. Wow.The story is terrific from the get go, with the final shot summarising all the themes and ideas that have been built up previously. Masterful filmmaking and a movie that deserves to be recalled as a classic western.

A good ten years have passed since last I saw "The Proposition", and it'll probably be another ten before I watch this again. But knowing how cold and evil this movie is does help you enjoy the more subtle things like character and story. There are some nice performances here (John Hurt was a highlight) and I found myself wishing the story would move away from Guy Pearce and back to Ray Winstone. The story itself is as Western as they come: retribution, justice, misanthropic family. Fairly simplistic. It's not a bad movie, and it does plunge you into the brutal Australian outback where society lives on the raggedy edge.But it is, first and foremost, a nasty affair. The violence runs grisly, and when the blood isn't flying, the sound design picks up the slack and your imagination does the rest.Not my thing.5/10

Few westerns get as bleak, hopeless and depressing as John Hillcoat's achingly beautiful The Proposition. It puts us in colonial Australia, where British immigrants live, restless in their empty, harsh new land, and prone to troublesome, destructive behaviour. Guy Pearce plays Charlie Burns, a ruthless outlaw. When his young brother is captured by menacing lawman Stanley (Ray Winstone), he's given a deal: find their even worse, murdering brother Danny Burns (Danny Huston), or hang with his brother. This sets an ambient chase in motion across the dusty outback. This is no streamlined action opus though. It ambles along like a 3 wheeled cart, taking its time getting where it's going and making uncomfortable pauses to dwell on the brutality that befalls the characters. Where other directors would shy away and show something off screen, Hillcoat refuses to compromise, keeping his camera dead center on the atrocities, which makes for uncomfortable viewing, but always compelling. Huston makes a cunning monster of Danny, a vicious outlaw with neither compassion nor remorse. Winstone finds himself at odds with his wife (Emily Watson) who finds his methods too harsh, but has no notion of the lengths the outlaws go, and how bad it can get, until they're at her door in a nauseating sequence that encapsulates the bitter tone. Pearce makes a silent but deadly gunslinger, saying more in a shift of horse or twitch of his grimy trigger finger than could be written in volumes. John Hurt shows up as a drunken old coot, and David Wenham makes a wormy high ranking official. Hillcoat combs the restless wisps of mist that shroud barren rock faces as well as he navigates the weathered and world weary mugs of his terrific troupe of actors, creating a hard luck, take no prisoners, kick in the nuts of a western that will entrance and exhaust you emotionally. Alternative maestro Nick Cave turns in a spine chilling spoken word original score that coasts on the hoof beats, gunshots, screams, whiplashes and devilish deeds of the lost souls in this uncompromising tale.

I think the main downfall of this movie is that the entire plot is revealed in the first five minutes of it (as well as the plot synopsis). John Hillcoat also directed "Lawless" which was a pretty good movie but since it was based on real events it doesn't matter if it was predictable. This wasn't allowed the same graces. Danny Huston's voice was really the only reason I kept watching it. Guy Pierce was decent, Richard Wilson was awful snivelly, and Ray Winstone was not very threatening, though I did appreciate him standing up for Mike. The other main villain (whose character name I don't remember) was too demented and I really felt sorry for him rather than disliking him. This didn't bring anything to the "aus-western" genre except for the whole "which brother is more important" thing.I think the best way for this to be better would be to reveal the proposition at the very end instead of right away. It wouldn't be a twist ending as much as something worth waiting for.