The Proposition
First Look International | Release Date: May 5, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Directed by John Hillcoat, this Aussie feature perfectly re-creates the charbroiled landscapes and cruel psychodrama of the old Sergio Leone westerns, with John Hurt particularly fine as a raging old mountain goat. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
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. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
A pitiless yet elegiac Australian Western as caked with beauty as it is with blood. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerPaula Nechak
In the end, this is a film about retribution and justice within unjust circumstances. Each character has a personal code of honor -- Arthur, Charlie and Capt. Stanley are all given their dignity -- and it's that code that sets the film apart. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Despite perpetual rumors of its demise as a genre, the Western is alive and well in the Australian outback. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
It's a terrific, kinetic experience, and it's also a brilliant showcase for a crackerjack ensemble of great actors. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
A near-masterpiece of mood and menace, and one that deserves to be seen on the largest screen possible. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
The Proposition, a beautiful, bloody meditation on justice, family, and the trap of retribution, is in every respect an artful addition to the canon of six-shooter morality tales. Read full review
83
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
By turns grisly and hallucinatory, The Proposition is one of those grand, mythic Westerns, full of wide-open spaces and dank little hellholes, detestable bad guys and virginal women, laconic lawmen and wary natives. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
A fascinating, mythological western. Read full review
80
VarietyRichard Kuipers
Hillcoat and Cave have here found their most fertile ground yet for allegory-rich examinations of life and death in remote, pressure-cooker environments. Read full review
80
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
The climactic Christmas Day dinner of dreadful retribution is a terrifying prospect, but for anyone with a yen for our great lost genre, it's also some sort of gift. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyF. X. Feeney
The Proposition is a very hard and harsh movie, but it also has a hypnotic, lyrical velocity. As Arthur, Huston exudes dead charisma. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
It's the kind of movie we don't often encounter these days, and actually never did: A dramatically dense and morally complicated work, it's also a highly pictorial wide-screen entertainment with a dynamite cast, channeling the legacy of John Ford and Sam Peckinpah (and maybe Joseph Conrad too). Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
A visionary tale -- bleak but visionary all the same -- of a fragile civilizing impulse crushed by family loyalty and a lust for revenge in the vast Outback of the late 19th century.
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The veteran rock musician Nick Cave wrote the screenplay and John Hillcoat directed, both somewhat in thrall to Sam Peckinpah. The bonds of family are the centerpiece of this highly uneven, hyperviolent film. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
A sweat-slicked, near-abstract ballet of blood and sand. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Despite all the violence that ensues, The Proposition is a psychological Western more in the mold of Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" than the John Ford films its stark cinematography resembles. It's about a good man, Stanley, who does bad things, and a bad man, Charlie, fighting his conscience. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
A spellbinding Australian Western. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldPeter Debruge
The Proposition leaves you shell-shocked. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
It is one of those movies--Antonioni's "Red Desert" being the most flagrant example--that spend so much time brimming with moral and political suggestion that they almost forget to tell us what's actually going on. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
The cast of The Proposition is reason enough to see the film. Read full review
70
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
The Australian director John Hillcoat makes an audacious, unsettling American feature debut with The Proposition, a revisionist western that brings its own brand of sanguinary honesty to the genre. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
There is life to The Proposition, though, and brutal, pitiless life it is. If it breathed more (and if Huston had spoken less), it might have been remarkable. As it is, it's monotonous, grim and uneven. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Huston's performance has a keen edge to it, as do those of the other actors, yet everyone suffers from the same problem -- they're not playing knowable characters so much as thematic points on the broad spectrum of violence. Read full review
60
Film ThreatPhil Hall
A good film, but it should’ve been a great one. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
The quality of the acting, Cave's hellfire score and the heavy atmospherics of the directing merely dress up a cliché: Violence leads to more violence. Read full review
50
PremiereEthan Alter
The Proposition can be appreciated as a strong technical exercise, but it fails to resonate on any deeper level. Read full review
50
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Despite the pictorial riches, despite the firm performances by Ray Winstone as the captain and Guy Pearce as Charlie Burns, despite the miraculous John Hurt in an eccentric role that was put in just for spice, The Proposition is hollow. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverRob Nelson
Conversation is as meaningless as anything else in this barbarist take on "The Searchers." Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
The sketchily symbolic characters and flat plot just frame an atmosphere of sticky heat and Biblical reckoning. Read full review
More From This Movie

73 Critic Reviews

8.0 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL