The Weight: Movie Review

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Julia Jones, Austin Amelio
Director: Padraic McKinley

A Depression-era film with a bit of directorial flair and clout and an actor who's getting better with age, Padraic McKinley's tale of a man separated from his daughter has all the heft its title promises.

Hawke is Samuel Murphy, a former soldier turned mechanic who has a knack of getting things done. However, as it's 1933 and America's suffering, those skills land him and his daughter nowhere as he's forced out onto the street with his child. Things get worse when he ends up in jail after a street brawl.

Sentenced to a labour camp and with only a desire to do his time to get back to his daughter, Murphy is offered an out by camp boss Warden Clancy (Crowe, mainly bookending the movie). The only catch is he and a group of men have to transfer gold across the wilderness before President Roosevelt snatches it from the mines.

Tasked with the perilous journey and the wilderness, as well as the untrustworthiness of his colleagues, Murphy finds his route to would-be freedom is anything but simple.

There's a veritable grit to The Weight, which is carried largely by one of Hawke's best performances. A knotty role delivered by a sinewy and taut lead, the film wastes none of its time getting down to the plot - even if it could do with losing maybe a little of its 2-hour runtime.

An action-adventure survival thriller that offers up at least one moment of directorial flair (within a storm sequence), McKinley's story does little to tug at the heartstrings, but plays all the classic trappings of a film built on twists and the violence that men do in desperate times.

But wisely, he never loses the heart of his lead Murphy, a man who's caught between reality and the promise of something he desperately wants. It helps that Hawke never overplays his hand and is restrained in extremis, but offers the kind of compelling performance you'd want from a film that feels like it's come from yesteryear.

Whether it's the villainous terrain or the actual villains of the piece, The Weight manages to make the most out of both its setting and its leads, crafting levels of suspense that are hard to resist. There's a grittiness to the drive on display here and the film goes to lengths to ensure that the rawness felt by all feels as real as the lines etched on Hawke's face.