An outlaw is goaded into taking on justice at its most brutal in this hard-edged Western set in Australia in the 1880s. Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) and his brother Mikey (Richard Wilson) are on the run from the law after their career as criminals went too far when they helped kill a pregnant woman. Charlie and Mikey are captured by police after a bloody shoot-out, and the brothers are handed over to Capt. Stanley (Ray Winstone), a British lawman sent to Australia to help bring order to the colonies. There is a third Burns brother, Arthur (Danny Huston), with a much longer rap sheet than his siblings and a reputation for hiding out in villages so lawless the police are afraid to visit them. Stanley proposes a deal to Charlie, explaining that its Arthur he really wants, and that hes willing to spare the child-like and terrified Mikey if Charlie can find Arthur and murder him. Charlie, realizing that this is his only hope to save his simpleton younger brother from the hangman, agrees, and sets out to find and execute his other brother, whom he believes has gone too far into the world of crime. As Charlie scours the backwaters of Australia, he encounters bounty hunter Jellon Lamb (John Hurt), an educated man who proves himself more menacing than he appears. In time, Charlie finds his brother, but isnt certain if he can carry out his mission. Meanwhile, Stanley struggles to bring a European sense of civility to the rough and tumble land he now calls home, while his wife, Martha (Emily Watson), becomes the focus of the lustful appetites of the men in town. The Proposition was written by ock star and novelist Nick Cave; he previously collaborated with director John Hillcoat on the film Ghosts...of the Civil Dead. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide