"I Want You To Kill Your Brother"

With that line, Ray Winstone's Captain Stanley sets forth the simple and sickly plot device which propels The Proposition.  This business is not for the faint of heart.  There is a world of pain in the 1880's outback and Stanley's thought that he will 'civilize this land' not only proceeds from morally shaky ground, but is also completely unrealizable.  Guy Pierce (made up to look like Clint Eastwood) does an admirable job and Danny Huston leaves you wanting a bit more, but all that proved quite secondary for me.  It was not the loyalty and the family issues which swirled around Pierce and Huston's Burns brothers, but rather the thin blue line that Winstone's Stanley ended up twirling around his own neck like a piano wire.  That's what really got me.  Stanley is sick - he's drinking, he's suffering from headaches, he's sweating and overweight.  The coppers under him don't really like or respect him.  As a viewer, you're not 100% on his judgment or methods.  And his relationship with his wife is characterized by trying to shelter her from all the bad-ness that's eating him up - but we all know that's not going to happen, right?  And it's only when she gets to see some blood spill first-hand that their relationship starts to change and he starts to feel better.  And that's when the dark really starts to close in.

Nick Cave does not serve up the choice lines that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but this film isn't really being marketed as a talker.  Instead, you get the tension - that piano wire once again - stretched to the point of breaking, only now it's in the pit of your stomach.  You know its coming.  It's just a moment away, the final, operatic bloodbath that will bring down the curtain on this dance of death.  And just before, don't the charcacters thank their Lord and Savior for what they are about to receive?  And in that same moment, the audience does the same.  And then there is a short pause, and then the film delivers with its ruthless directness and clarity.  Simple and devastating.

Winstone may never command the fees of his prettier contemporaries.  He may not be splashed on the cover of glossy magazines and we won't be wondering what he and his companion were wearing at the next Oscars.  But in this film and Sexy Beast and every other thing you've seen him in, you just give him the part and let the man do his job.  And he blows you away. The only real worry is that he'll make all those nice-looking superstars look bad. We wouldn't want that now, would we?