CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Mr-Fusion 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

JohnLeeT While this film is nothing extraordinary, Ms. Emily Watson certainly is and she is absolutely brilliant in what easily could have been a throwaway role. It was a fantastically imaginative casting choice by the director to choose Watson as what he probably wished would be more than the typical "frontier wife." He got much, much more as Emily Watson gives a performance of subtle sexuality, passion, and courage. In doing so, she does what she usually does and makes this film her own. It takes tremendous talent and incredible power for her to step forth from this group of male actors and in beautiful fashion demonstrate her exceptionality as an artist. She breathes life into what could have been a stale stereotype and sets fire to the screen in several stupendous scenes. The only problem is she is underused and the camera spends too little time on her glowing face and blinding cinematic presence. However, what she does with the camera time she is given is miraculous and for that reason this film is a 10. Watson is indeed the most powerfully talented and divinely gifted actor working in cinema today and she continues to astonish audiences with each succeeding performance in a way that no other actor can touch.

Rob_Taylor Whilst by no means a terrible movie, The Proposition adds nothing to an already done-to-death genre, namely Westerns.The plot is thin and could have made an acceptable TV episode, but instead its spun out into a movie with the addition of pointless travelogue songs and the occasional (not occasional enough!) bouts of philosophy and drivel spouted by some of the characters.The backstory to the characters is almost non-existent. We are told they are a band of ruthless outlaws and degenerates and their crimes are hinted at, but never shown. This is at odds with the rest of the movie, which gleefully shows the effects of violence with gusto.None of the characters are particularly likable, which leads the viewer to not really care one way or the other whether they live or die. And, when you don't care about the characters, it's hard to care about the movie as a whole.The Proposition is slow, uneven and filled with well...filler. At the end, I was glad it was finished so that I could go and get on with something more interesting and rewarding.SUMMARY: Tedious and unsatisfying. Watch Unforgiven, or Deadwood for more visceral and intelligent Western drama. This one is really not worth the effort.

Guy THE PROPOSITION has a great premise. An outlaw is captured alongside his younger brother. The Policeman who did it offers him the titular proposition. Find and kill his elder brother- or else the younger brother will be hanged .Sadly despite this excellent premise and an interesting setting - a Western set in the Victorian Australian Outback - the film throws it all away with poor plotting, uninteresting characters, a lack of respect for those it portrays and an over-long running time.The number one problem is that the screenplay becomes far too interested in the Policeman (Ray Winstone) and places his story on par with that of the Outlaw (Guy Pearce). Instantly the story becomes over-long in order to accommodate this second major plot. It doesn't help that, unlike the Outlaw, the Policeman has no real goal to achieve, no stakes, indeed, nothing much to do at all. This also results in a lack of characterisation for the Outlaw. Stripped of dialogue you cannot care about this enigma of a man, whilst the central question of the film - will he kill his elder brother to save his younger brother? - is never sufficiently teased. The film makes a number of other missteps. It asks the audience to sympathise with the elder brother, despite him being a murderer and a rapist (and showing no real remorse for either). It forces modern attitudes on the past, notably in the corporal punishment scene where the (mentally retarded) younger brother is whipped. At the beginning the crowd cheer but by the end they drift away, sickened. Not only does this not make sense (why the change?) but it is also historically dishonest. Victorians were quite happy with corporal punishment. The disgust of the crowd is that of the filmmakers, not that of the historical people. It also continues the tedious trend of self-hating imperial films in which all the white male characters are swine whilst women and natives are wise and sympathetic (the only character I cared about was the almost silent Aborigine tracker- who was promptly murdered).Nick Cave did the music, which all to often means long, slow, unnecessary shots of Australia set to music. Once might have been fine but every time the story starts moving they throw another of these boring musical pauses in. A handful of sub plots, such as John Hurt's character, serve only to eke out more running time. This film should stand as a perfect example of how 'artiness' can ruin a film.