This review is based on a screening from the Sundance Film Festival.
Padraic McKinley’s first feature, a Depression-era heist western led by Ethan Hawke, is an absolute delight. At turns nerve-wracking and gradually riveting, The Weight is incredibly self-assured in its straightforward plot, following a group of prisoners tasked with stealing gold in exchange for their freedom. It boasts an entertaining ensemble – among them, a scenery-chewing Russell Crowe – each of whom play fully fleshed-out people as much as they portray unexpected symbols of American history, resulting in the kind of slick, sophisticated dramatic thriller that comes about once every so often.
The year is 1933. It’s been four years since the Great Depression thrust single Oregonian father Samuel Murphy (Hawke) and his young daughter Penny (Avy Berry) into poverty, but he keeps her amused by speeding their rickety Ford through open fields, pretending to be an outlaw of the Old West. “I ain’t never been caught!” he playfully boasts, drawing innocent laughter. The film’s introduction is intentionally saccharine and, it turns out, quite ironic, since Murphy is indeed locked up soon after a violent misunderstanding. Sentenced to labor in a prison camp under the watchful eye of the stringent, hard-nosed Warden Clancy (Crowe), Murphy uses his skills as a handyman and mechanic to expedite his roadway building in the hopes of having days or weeks knocked off his six-month sentence. He’s up against a ticking clock: Within 30 days, Penny will be made a ward of the state and put up for adoption.
Impressed with Murphy’s workmanship and sympathetic to his predicament, Clancy presents him with an opportunity. If he and three prisoners of his choosing can help one of Clancy’s associates out of a bind, he’ll sign their release papers early, reuniting Murphy with his child. The catch? As prisoners, they’re considered disposable. Their task is to make a dangerous trek at gunpoint, transporting gold stolen by its own mining overseer before it’s reclaimed by the Franklin D. Roosevelt government – a real executive order forbidding the hoarding of bullion in an effort to inject money back into the US economy. These are the beginnings of not only the movie’s larger plot but the streamlined political backdrop against which the characters wrestle. Some are content to live under the bootheels of capitalism, transporting other people’s gold for a pittance; others, especially those dealing with racial animus, are less enthused, leading to a mood of fomenting rebellion.
Risking life and limb over treacherous terrain, and under fire from bandits, Murphy’s quest takes the form of breathtaking set-pieces interspersed with quiet character moments, which help flesh out the story just as much as the interpersonal banter. The men he chooses to accompany him are his sharp-tongued bunkmates, who, despite their wildly different backgrounds and dispositions, at least get along while playing poker. There’s Rankin (Austin Amelio), a boorish WASP loudmouth; Olson (Lucas Lynggaad Tonnesen), a kindly, trusting Swede; and Singh (Avi Nash), a restless Indian-American socialist lumped in with the trio instead of in the “colored” bunks, since Indians were legally considered “Caucasian” at the time. A pair of armed security guards – the terse Amis (Sam Hazeldine) and the burly Letender (George Burgess) – guides them on their journey, keeping their eyes and crosshairs trained on the prisoners. Along the way, the ragtag bunch also picks up a Native American straggler – the dexterous, headstrong Anna (Julia Jones), who bargains her way into the group and matches Murphy’s penchant for MacGyver-ing his way out of sticky situations.
The film veers deftly between reflective silence and cheer-worthy pandemonium, yielding numerous heart-in-mouth moments. The rotten planks of a steadily-collapsing bridge snap off with the thundering echoes of gunshots – the movie’s sound design is impeccable, enhancing the motion of people and objects – while logs floating down a treacherous river practically assault the motley fellowship like a swarm of sharks. It’s maddeningly intense, and often just as funny.
All the while, Hawke – as usual – puts on a clinic of performance that feels like the polar opposite of his meek, shallow, wordy (and recently Oscar-nominated) Blue Moon character. His conception of Murphy is gruff but never caricatured. He serves the plot precisely, calculating each decision and motive with lucid clarity, and yet he embodies each scene in completely organic ways that create worlds of wordless backstory. Despite keeping largely to himself and to his mission, you know exactly who Murphy is, as though he were Jesse James or some other American outlaw who had risen to the ranks of folklore; perhaps the movie’s opening wasn’t so ironic after all. Would you believe Murphy’s skills behind the wheel turn out to be relevant too?
Cinematographer Matteo Cocco makes tremendous use of space and light, framing forest thickets as labyrinths and hiding sinister intentions behind bonfires and deep shadows. A particularly inventive scene uses the alternating flashes and pitch-blackness of a lightning storm to ratchet up the tension, while the movie’s violence is filthy and raw. Some viewers might miss the expanse of action scenes depicted in their entirety, but McKinley places a rewarding amount of trust in his audience, creating momentum through implication and, on occasion, propelling the film forward by interweaving several moments from adjacent scenes, as though each new sequence were being imagined by the last, and the movie were persistently creating itself anew. If the filmmakers couldn’t shoot enough footage for a traditional presentation, they’ve certainly made the most of it.
The Weight moves with furious focus and rollicking intensity. It never wavers from its characters or their political and historical purviews, and makes its unlikely heroes look phenomenally cool.
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