The Proposition

When you talk about Westerns that have attached themselves to the idea of what we all want to remember the old west as, the first director that comes to mind is Sergio Leone. In the spirit of how he changed the film industries approach to the western movie, we now have a director that ranks right up there with the best of the best, John Hillcoat. This film is set in the Australian outback sometime around the 1880s, and is as gripping as any of Leone's films.Two outlaw brothers are captured, and the older brother is given an option to save his younger brother from the gallows, in nine days find and kill his oldest brother and the two of them can walk free. Like all good stories the premise starts out with a simple proposition and then the fun begins. Watching this film you get the definite impression that the outback in Australia is as exactly as it was in the 1880s, you could literally walk in the same paths today that these characters would have walked in back then. Between the authentic costumes and the strong acting from all of the participants this film comes off as a gripping drama that can be stacked up against any of its genre brethren.
The feel of the film is so much like Leone that you almost get the impression that Hillcoat had learned his craft directly from the master himself. This is not a movie to be missed if you are a Leone fan, this should be seen for the shear enjoyment of a western film that shows that the genre is not dead and there are people out there that know how to do it right.