The Weight is a pleasant surprise, particularly given that Russell Crowe hasn’t had a standout role in some time. The draw is Ethan Hawke, an actor whose films are always worth watching. The Boyhood star is wonderfully cast here, and Crowe excels too. He seems to have reached a stage in his career where he embraces his age and plays rugged characters with an edge.
The film marks the directorial debut of Padraic McKinley, with a screenplay from Shelby Gaines and Matthew Booi, among others. The film is a German-American co-production that premiered at Sundance earlier this year. Set in Oregon in 1933, during the Great Depression, The Weight follows Samuel (Hawke), a widower raising his young daughter, Penny alone. After a run-in with the law, he is separated from her and sent to a brutal prison work camp while she is placed in a orphanage awaiting adoption.
In Prison, Crowe’s Warden Clancy offers Samuel a deal: smuggle gold out of a remote mine with a dangerous crew of prisoners and he’ll win his freedom back, plus the chance to be reunited with Penny. It is a dangerous, and clearly illegal errand, but at least Samuel gets to pick the men who go with him.
The setup is simple, but the film makes it work. The Depression-era setting gives the story real stakes and some very exciting action set pieces. Samuel isn’t chasing the money, he’s a desperate father trying to get back to his child, and that motivation drives every decision he makes. This is what gives the film its emotional core, and Hawke plays it with a grounded sincerity that makes the audience care about the outcome.
The supporting cast is strong. Julia Jones plays Anna, an Indigenous woman the group meets. Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen plays Olson, a young Scandinavian farmer who finds himself in jail through no fault of his own. Meanwhile, Austin Amelio and Avi Nash also give notable performances as the last 2 prisoners. Each member of the crew feels distinct, which matters in a story built on suspicion and shifting loyalties. The film takes the time to make these men people rather than types, and the tension is stronger for it.
It’s hard to believe this is a first feature; the film is beautifully made, balancing action with rich character work on a modest scale. It recalls Sorcerer and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre without imitating either, borrowing their sense of desperate men bound together by a dangerous job while finding its own identity. A standout scene has the men moving gold across a rickety bridge, staged with real finesse and tension. It is genuinely a near perfect sequence.
Any film with Ethan Hawke is worth watching, and this one is no exception. McKinley is hugely impressive in this incredible well executed debut. Consiider me impressed.
