Eugene, Oregon. 1933. The Depression has not been kind to widower and single parent Samuel, a crack mechanic and World War I veteran. Out of work and evicted from his dwellings, he gets in a punch up with the cops and lands up in penitentiary. His little daughter, Penny, is taken into state care and the threat of losing custody of his child is magnified by the length of his sentence.
The promise of early parole comes from prison warden Clancy who offers Samuel a high-stakes proposition: join a dangerous crew of prisoners on a perilous mission to smuggle gold out of a remote mine, and he’ll earn his freedom.
With little choice but to accept, Samuel is thrust into the unforgiving Oregon wilderness alongside three inmates of his choosing and a couple of overseers.
Welcome to THE WEIGHT, a film whose precedents are pictures like The Treasure of Sierra Madre and The Wages of Fear, where the allure of gold and the transit of contraband over a harsh environment quickly turns a journey increasingly treacherous, where tensions rise and loyalties fracture, and greed, suspicion and violence festers.
Ethan Hawke is excellent as Samuel, self reliant but with a great empathy for people. Russell Crowe as the baseball loving Clancy who does not always play with a straight bat is equally good. Their scenes together crackle and pop, two characters weighing each other up, the scales finding balance in characterisation and performance.
Quietly powerful is Julia Jones’ portrayal of Anna, the Native American woman who becomes an unexpected member of the troupe of smugglers, while Avy Berry as Samuel’s daughter, Penny, is a joyful, exuberant delight.
THE WEIGHT is a tense tale of survival, betrayal and risk, briskly realised by director Padraic McKinley, intent on texturing the action set pieces with subtle yet intricate character development. Why wait?
