Proposition (Blu-ray) (2005)

Uncut
5 stars out of 5 -- "The film is shot by Benoit Delhomme, who captures the cruel beauty of the Outback, while the score is a mixture of traditional folk and atmospheric instrumentals. The acting is exceptional..." 04/01/2006 p.130-131

New York Times
"There is something heavy and monumental about the way Mr. Huston takes up film space, which makes a nice counterpart to the otherworldly Mr. Pearce....Both actors are memorable..." 05/05/2006 p.E11

Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "[The film] feels startlingly fresh and original....THE PROPOSITION is a startling parable about man's savagery to man." 06/01/2006 p.100-101

Ultimate DVD
4 stars out of 5 -- "Cave and Hillcoat add a new flavour to the oldest genre....A violent, yet lyrical frontier tale." 09/01/2006 p.214

Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "[A] movie of startling visuals....[The images] speak potently and startlingly for themselves." 10/05/2006 p.77

Entertainment Weekly
Included in Entertainment Weekly's "Top 10 Films Of The Year" -- "[T]he movie is a dazzle of mood, style, and mythologized history." 12/29/2006 104

Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "It's hard to pick a standout performance from the extraordinary ensemble cast....[With] a premise as morally ambiguous as most of the characters that populate the film..." 11/01/2008 p.196

Reel.com 10 of 10
"I will civilize this land," declares Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone), the English officer in charge of a hellish region in the Australian Outback. But words and deeds are two separate things in The Proposition, a brutal, poetic, and eerie Western from director John Hillcoat and screenwriter/composer Nick Cave that transcends genre in its depiction of the forces roiling the land in the late 1800s...This is a fictional story, but Cave colors it with historical detail: the British prejudice against the Irish...For such a bloody movie, The Proposition is uncommonly beautiful. Cinematographer Benoit Delhomme shoots in Panavision, all the better to capture the outback's epic scale. And Hillcoat's fondness for that magic hour when daylight turns to dusk is evident in so many breathtaking scenes. But the pretty pictures are beside the point; this is an Australian Wild Bunch that goes even further than Sam Peckinpah dreamed. Not only are the outlaws about to be trampled by the onslaught of Stanley's precious "civilization," but even those who consider themselves part of that new world are not exempt. It is an enthralling story full of unforgettable characters given life by a group of actors at the top of their form. It is a harrowing, magnificent drama, once upon a time down under. - Pam Grady
 
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
"The Proposition" plays like a Western moved from Colorado to Hell. The characters are familiar: The desperado brothers, the zealous lawman, his civilized wife, the corrupt mayor, the old coots, the resentful natives. But the setting is the Outback of Australia as I have never seen it before. These spaces don't seem wide open because an oppressive sky glares down at the sullen earth; this world is sun-baked, hostile, unforgiving, and it breeds heartless men...That book features a character known as the Judge, a tall, bald, remorseless bounty hunter who essentially wants to kill anyone he can, until he dies. His dialogue is peculiar, the speech of an educated man. "The Proposition" has such a character in an outlaw named Arthur Burns, who is much given to poetic quotations. He is played by Danny Huston in a performance of remarkable focus and savagery...Why do you want to see this movie? Perhaps you don't...But the director John Hillcoat, working from a screenplay by Nick Cave, has made a movie you cannot turn away from; it is so pitiless and uncompromising, so filled with pathos and disregarded innocence, that it is a record of those things we pray to be delivered from. The actors invest their characters with human details all the scarier because they scarcely seem human themselves. - Roger Ebert