The Weight - Film Review - Fremantle Shipping News

Directorial debut of Padraic McKinley, co-produced by Ryan Hawke and starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe. Gayle O’Leary reviews.

The Weight is a tense, gritty slow burn that tells a relentlessly urgent story of gold smuggling, survival and desperation in Depression era America.

Starting in 1933 Oregon, the film tracks the characters over beautiful forested wilderness and treacherous logger river runs as they transport to safety their concealed packs of gold bars, bars obtained from one of the privately owned gold mines soon to be acquired by the State by decree of President Roosevelt.

It is vital that no one learns of their task. Even security guards of the gold mines are reported to have looted the riches, and it is feared this is inevitable for the remaining mines as their foreclosure looms closer.

A curious note to the expedition: the men tasked with transporting the gold are prisoners. Can they be trusted?

Murphy (Ethan Hawke) has everything to lose. Every day he labours in a prison camp is another day closer to his daughter becoming a ward of the state and lost to him forever. If he can use his ingenuity to pull this off, he’ll win early release courtesy of Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe).

Provided he keeps his word. Provided the other prisoners or their guards don’t slaughter each other for the gold.

Five minutes into the film, I already felt deeply invested in the trusting “no bullshit” relationship between the father and young daughter, Penny (perfectly cast with the stoic Avy Berry) as they navigate poverty. Audiences will also greatly enjoy the nervous dynamic between Hawke and Crowe, where Crowe wields terrifying power over Hawke even as his admiration of him is clear.

I recognised Anna (Julia Jones) from Dexter, who is no less assertive and self composed in this feature while providing a quietly ironic mirror to the exploits of the prisoners, best exemplified when Ethan Hawke’s character inadvertently mansplains while cautioning her about poisonous local plants.

It succeeded in surprising me multiple times, and each time I was sure I knew what the ending would be my assumptions were flipped yet again. I was apprehensive that this might turn out to be a dark, merciless depiction of the American Dream gone horribly wrong and instead experienced a compelling, often warm and hopeful story that perhaps stretched a bit long and would have benefited from a bit more character development, if one must be critical.

Vignette and film grain also adds to the period-appropriate moodiness of the story, nicely scored by a nerve jangling soundtrack.