Culture
Now Playing: ‘The Weight’ is a gritty, gripping, gold-centered crime movie
By: Gordon Briggs
Posted on:
In my time, I’ve seen many crime movies. Most of them are glamorous affairs that opt for an urban setting and usually sport some slick technology that helps pull off a heist. Thank the lord, The Weight goes in a different direction.
As for the plot, my elevator pitch is John Huston’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) crossed with William Friedkin’s Sorcerer (1977). Set in Oregon in 1933, we follow Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke), a single father and WWI veteran trying to scrape by with his young daughter. After he is sent to prison, Hawke takes on a dangerous mission to lead a group of fellow prisoners on a gold-smuggling mission through the wilderness to win his freedom and reunite with his young daughter.
First, the movie absolutely works as a thriller. Because the men carry an enormous weight on their backs in the form of gold bricks, the movie generates substantial tension as they must simultaneously hide and protect this precious cargo. For instance, many of the film’s advertisements emphasize the treacherous crossing scene, where prison laborers encounter a rickety, unstable rope-and-wood suspension bridge stretching across a massive chasm.
However, The Weight is a slow-burn thriller that gradually escalates its tension. Before the treacherous gold mission begins, I appreciate how the movie takes time to focus on Hawke trying to make ends meet and struggling to survive with his daughter. A different movie would have rushed through those scenes to get us to the gold and gunplay. Still, this one takes its time establishing both Hawke’s relationship with his daughter and his complicated relationship with the prison warden, played memorably by Russel Crowe, before the treacherous journey begins.
Beyond the writing, part of what engages the audience is how lived-in the movie feels. Visually, the film starts in a dull, gray world representing the economic desperation of 1933. As the characters move into the wilderness, the film shifts into dense fog, cool grays, and lush pines, using Germany’s forests to double as a treacherous, unyielding Pacific Northwest.
Of course, I cannot leave out the movie’s talented cast of memorable criminals. Whether it is Julia Jones as a quiet Indigenous runaway who accompanies the prisoners or Avi Nash as an anarcho-socialist inmate who makes some lucid connections between thievery and capitalism, every character feels half broken but fully developed.
Their ordeal embodies the duality of the film’s title. A literal interpretation suggests that “The Weight” these characters carry represents the physical weight of the stolen gold bars. Beyond the gold, the characters carry heavy internal traumas, guilt, and the desperate yearning for freedom. The narrative asks whether these individuals can not only survive the treacherous journey through the wilderness, but ultimately shed their personal burdens.
Right now, movie theaters are crowded with leftover summer blockbusters, YouTube-inspired horror flicks, and early award-season contenders. So, it’s easy for a film like The Weight to get lost in the shuffle. However, for those who enjoy an engaging character-driven crime drama, I would encourage you to seek it out. ★ ★ ★ ½