Review: 'Proposition' captures realism of Old West

The Western has been a motion picture genre for well over a century. As far back as 1903, director Edwin S. Porter wowed audiences with the short (silent, of course) film, “The Great Train Robbery,” and countless Westerns have been brought to the screen since. The Golden Age of the Western – typified by the work of such directors as John Ford and Howard Hawks – is widely believed to have been the 1930s through the 1950s.

Since then, the sheer volume of this type of film has decreased, but the innovations broadening the genre’s boundaries have remained healthy.

The 1960s saw the rise of Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti” Westerns. “Revisionist” Westerns, typified by films such as “Little Big Man,” “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” and “The Wild Bunch,” also started appearing around this time.

Eastwood

“Dances with Wolves” aside, Clint Eastwood – who got his start on TV’s “Rawhide” and starred in Leone’s films – ushered in the modern Western era with the brilliant “Unforgiven” in 1992. Since that time, every year or so has seen the release of a truly great Western film, “Lone Star,” “El Mariachi” and “Dead Man” among them.

Recently, “Brokeback Mountain” caused quite a stir, actor Tommy Lee Jones directed the stunning “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” and the HBO series “Deadwood” is capturing “Sopranos”-like reviews.

And now comes the Australian film, “The Proposition.”

Directed by John Hillcoat (“To Have and to Hold”) from a screenplay by musician-songwriter Nick Cave – who has provided songs for films from “Shrek 2” to “Hellboy” – the film plays out like a cross between Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch” and Quentin Tarantino’s heist caper, “Reservoir Dogs.”

Set in Australia in the wild, untamed 1880s, the film is aided immensely by the cinematography of Benoît Delhomme and whoever managed to train the endless horde of flies that inhabit nearly every scene. The sense of realism is uncanny. The viewer can almost taste the dust, feel the heat and smell the flesh left rotting in the unbearable Australian sun. These are all positives.

Graphic shootout

“The Proposition” opens with a fairly graphic shootout scene. English lawman Capt. Morris Stanley has been brought to what he considers to be the God-forsaken Australian Outback to tame the rabid lawlessness. He has just captured one of Australia’s most wanted criminals, Charlie Burns, and Charlie’s little brother, the somewhat simple Mikey. Stanley has a “proposition” for Charlie. If he will track down his older brother, Arthur Burns, and kill him or bring him in, young Mikey will be spared from the noose and Charlie, too, will walk free. Knowing that Charlie has a protective nature toward his younger brother, Stanley is sure his proposition is fool proof.

Charlie takes off in search of Arthur while Mikey is thrown in jail where he is constantly tormented (and eventually flogged) by the sadistic guards.

Charlie encounters a drunken bounty hunter played by John Hurt as well as several very ill-tempered Aborigines.

He eventually finds Arthur, and the Burns brothers concoct a plan to save young Mikey on their own terms.

Genius

Cave’s screenplay (reportedly knocked together in about three weeks) is a work of genius. The dialogue is sharp and never melodramatic, with a lot of dark humor thrown in. His character development is impeccable as well. Just when we assume that Capt. Stanley is a run-of-the-mill, overzealous, self-righteous fanatic, his more complex characteristics begin to come to the fore. Mrs. Stanley (Emily Watson) offers the same degree of complexity, but in a different direction.

Guy Pearce, best known as Detective Lt. Ed Exley in “LA Confidential,” is nearly unrecognizable as Charlie Burns. His steel-blue eyes glisten through his greasy long hair, scraggly beard and 1880 dental hygiene. But he is a commanding figure.

Fans of Westerns who don’t mind the blunt language of hardened outlaws or the violence inherent in the telling of their tales will enjoy “The Proposition” thoroughly. It’s one of the best films I’ve seen this year, and Nick Cave deserves notice and nominations for his fine screenplay.

“The Proposition” is playing at The Moxie through Tuesday, July 18. See www.moxiecinema.com for showtimes.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.