Ethan Hawke strikes gold once again.
Ethan Hawke continues to meet well with age as an actor, and his new movie “The Weight” is further proof. His gritty voice and vulnerabilities makes him worthy of playing a father caught in bad circumstances and needs to bend a few rules to get back to his daughter.
It’s also a period piece, taking place in Oregon in 1933 during the Great Depression, and actually filmed in Viechtach, Germany. And it would also be a great time period for a crime story about smuggling gold in the mountains, which would have less cops and more bad guys and gorgeous cinematography by Matteo Cocco.
Hawke stars as Samuel Murphy, a widowed mechanic father with a little girl named Penny, both of whom are looking for a fresh, new start. When they sell a portion of their stuff, the girl offers to sell her teddy bear to a child, but ends up regretting it with a pouty disposition. And the dad has his skills to find them a new abode.
Unfortunately, when they find a new place to examine, he gets into a fight with men he didn’t know were cops, and ends up in a labor camp run by Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe). He seems like the Warden out of “The Shawshank Redemption,” and he may be a bad guy, but in a different way.
Eventually, given his mechanic skills and his pathos regarding his daughter, Samuel earns the respect of the Warden, who offers him a chance at freedom if he helps him smuggle gold from a mine and through the wilderness. And he’ll also free the men who assist him, consisting of the immigrant Singh (Avi Nash), the wildcard Rankin (Austin Amelio), the Scandinavian farm boy Olsen (Lucas Lynggaad Tonnesen). And they’re all accompanied by the guards Letender (George Burgess) and Amis (Sam Hazeldine). If they lose one piece of gold, well the numbers won’t add up. And I’m putting it mildly.
Along the way, they come across an Indigenous woman named Anna (Julia Jones), who persists on coming with them to escape from her troubles. And along the way, they’re guaranteed some betrayals and anything this trek unfolds for them. The most entertaining is when they all come across a rickety bridge, and they can’t carry all the good without falling through. So, Samuel has to stand in the center and catches and throws the gold bricks one at a time. It’s the tension that keeps us at the edge of our seat, especially when even one lost gold brick can put everyone in danger.
“The Weight” is the feature directorial debut of Padraic McKinley, whose editing credits include “The Express,” “Homefront,” and “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” And the writers are Leo Scherman, Matthew Chapman (“Runaway Jury”), Shelby Gaines (“Wildcat”), and Matthew Booi. The story seems breezy to be a thought-provoking thriller of the genre, but it has the ability to draw us into the characters and what game they’re part of. I would think this movie’s ending would be like “Triple Frontier,” which had a similar concept, but we get Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Call Me the Breeze” playing and that does set some high spirits.
I’ve mentioned how Hawke is very good in the lead role, but credit must also go to Jones for her persistent timing, the snappy dialogue from Nash and Amelio, and the old fashioned acting from Crowe. A small movie like this strikes gold with the right acting-half of which is performed by people we know and half of which we don’t know yet but are glad we met them.
Despite the Great Depression setting, “The Weight” is anything but poor and unhappy. If “Bonnie & Clyde” and “Road to Perdition” are among the specific period pieces to entertain us, then so can this movie.
