Reel To Reel: The Proposition

How It Rates: ***1/2
Starring: Tom Budge, Guy Pearce, Emily Watson, Ray Winstone, John Hurt
Rated: R (nearly NC-17!)
Red Flags: Intense Graphic Bloody Violence, Strong Language

"Are we misanthropes?"

"Lord no, we're family."

Those two lines are spoken by members of the Burns Gang, a notorious band of outlaws who seem to kill and rob because it's the only thing they know how to do, overriding what humanity still bubbles inside of them. Can you name a wild west gang who kept a stack of books in their hideout?

Combine Deadwood with Unforgiven, multiply it by the Sam Peckinpah films, move it all to the 1800's Australian outback, and you have Francis' Movie Equation for The Proposition, a stunning exploration of violence and justice and how one does not always bring about the other.

The film opens with a barrage of bullets on a hideout, resulting in the capture of Charlie Burns (Danny Huston) and his younger brother Mikey (Richard Wilson). But Captain Stanley (Winstone) is after a bigger prize: Arthur Burns, a man wanted for killing a family of three, including a pregnant mother. Charlie is so deranged, Arthur and Mikey have parted ways with him.

So Stanley makes Charlie a deal. "Suppose I gave you a horse and a gun," the captain says. "Suppose, Mr. Burns, I was to give both you and your young brother Mikey, here, a pardon. Suppose I said that I could give you the chance to expunge the guilt beneath which you so clearly labour."

"You want me to kill me brother," Charlie says. Otherwise, Mikey will hang on Christmas Day. Charlie sets out on the mission, leaving Mikey behind to quiver in a jail cell, wounded.

Captain Stanley, who would be wearing a sheriff's star if this were a typical western, is quivering inside as well, beset by headaches and a gnawing aversion to bloodletting. His beautiful wife Martha (Watson) longs to know why a young boy is locked up. A superior wants to know why the boy has not been beaten. Stanley's own men and the townspeople read the captain's actions as weakness.

"I will civilize this land," Staney says, firm if a little uncertain. He knows his purpose, but the preferred means clearly trouble him.

Violence -- graphic, bloodsoaked and explosive -- is a trademark of the picture, along with ubiquitous flies. Flies buzz in so many scenes, around the living and the dead, one wonders if they were trucked in for each shot. These two stylistic devices come together in one heartbreaking scene, where young Mikey is beaten. As lashes whip the boy's back, flies gather on the backs of the townspeople eager to see justice dispensed. This potent visual suggests those who those who yearn for corporal punishment are poisoned by blood lust. As flies feast on rotting flesh, it seems that they are rotting, too, but from the inside.

Eventually, the confrontation between the Burns brothers takes place in a Christmas Day showdown memorable most for what the camera doesn't focus on, reminding us again that outlaws are still families, even if they do kill other families for a living.