"The Proposition" is a dark, ugly, and oddly compelling anti-western that only works about half of the time.

The film came out in Australia in 2005, but it is only now being released in the United States. Perhaps distributors felt the film would be too hard to market. It’s hard to imagine anyone making an appealing trailer for it.

There is a ton of atmosphere (I could almost smell the filth and decay), biting dialog, and a wonderful cast. Viewers will have to decide whether its virtues are enough to justify all the squalor, depravity, and on-screen brutality. I often felt like the film was intentionally rubbing my face in dirt or excrement.

"The Proposition" is unique because all of its outlaw action takes place in Australia in the 1880s.The story starts after a gang of desperados led by Arthur Burns (Danny Huston, who embodies desperado cool) kills most of a family and rapes the daughter.

A crusty sheriff named Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) offers Arthur’s imprisoned brother, Charles (Guy Pierce), an impossible to refuse offer. He proposes that if Charles hunts down and kills Arthur, he can earn his freedom. He also threatens that if Charles does not fulfill the bargain in nine days, he will hang his mentally challenged brother on December 25. How’s that for Christian symbolism?

An opportunistic government official wants the sheriff to betray Arthur and kill them both. The sheriff’s wife is a friend of the woman who survived the rape, and she wants to see Charles punished. The town folk aren’t too crazy about the deal. They organize a lynch mob and want to punish Charles themselves.

John Hurt nearly steals the film in a cameo. He plays Jellon Lamb, an intellectual bounty hunter. In the film’s best scene, he shares the then new theory of evolution and reveals his madness.

Nick Cave, a gifted Aussie rocker, wrote "The Proposition." Cave sounds like the bastard child of Jim Morrison and Johnny Cash. He has collaborated with the other birthday party members, the bad seeds; pop diva, Kyle Minogue; and the no wave icon, Lydia Lunch.

Cave’s lyrics are filled with gloom and doom; and they reveal his obsession with Western mythology and urban legends. His script for this film explores some of the same themes. Cave also wrote or co-wrote many of the songs on the highly atmospheric soundtrack.

"The Proposition" wasn’t bad, but it made me wish I were seeing a better film of its type, such as "Dead Man" and "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia." It also made me yearn for a more pure and undiluted Western film. Maybe it’s time for Clint Eastwood to put on his spurs again.