The Weight review by Bobby Blakey
Ethan Hawke is one of those actors that gets lost in his roles and constantly takes on different challenges. His latest film The Weight teams him up with director Padraic McKinley and co-stars Russell Crowe, Julia Jones, Austin Amelio, Avi Nash, and Sam Hazeldine. Could this film bring something different and heavy as the trailer promises or will it fail to survive the journey?
The Weight follows Samuel in Oregon in 1933, who is torn from his daughter and sent to a brutal prison where Warden Clancy offers a high-stakes proposition: smuggle gold out of a remote mine with a dangerous crew of prisoners and he’ll win his freedom. But as the group journeys into the unforgiving wilderness, the real threat isn’t the terrain - it’s the betrayal and violence festering within their ranks.
Surrounded by greed, suspicion, and danger, Samuel must risk everything to reunite with his child.
I love films in this period as there are just so many elements that tend to lean it into something refreshing to watch visually in aesthetics of the action and drama. This one isn’t an exciting action film as some might expect from the trailer but does have that survival element of the genre once they get on their journey to move the gold. This leans into not only a fight against the elements, but the greed of man which is always the biggest threat to anything.
Ethan Hawke carries the film on his shoulders to perfection with a strong emotional yet stoic persona. From being a loving father doing anything he can to survive and take care of his daughter to the circumstance that rips them apart it is a masterclass in acting. Even at his hardest and most down he never loses focus on his goal without ever being a bad guy despite the situation.
Crowe isn’t in the film all that much with more of a bookend performance setting things in motion and for the finale of it all. No surprise, despite this small role he is still great. The rest of the cast are fantastic as well with them rounding out this dysfunctional crew of people that are constantly butting heads at every turn even though they are all trying to accomplish the same thing.
The film is well done and well-acted but does faulter in trying to create real tension or anything fresh and new. There are a lot of by the numbers story elements that need that extra infusion of something to really step it up. Even the moments of near death over a rope bridge and in a dangerous river situation never feels like the danger is really. This doesn’t make the film bad it just could have slapped you in the face with these moments giving it more of a sense of danger but instead just limps to the finish line.
I did enjoy the film and the opening and closing shots to the film are perfect choices I just wish it had gone more in on some of the story elements that were so deeply perfectly set up leading in.
Decide for yourself and check out The Weight in theaters now from Vertical Entertainment.