A father, Ethan Hawke, gets sent to a brutal work camp in 1933 Oregon and is given a chance to shorten his sentence and reunite with his daughter by helping move a load of gold through the wilderness.
That’s The Weight.
It’s a pretty good setup.
Naturally, it gets complicated.
The Weight is part prison movie, part survival story, part heist movie, and it works best when it keeps things simple: desperate men, dangerous terrain, and a lot of reasons not to trust the person walking next to you.
Russell Crowe plays the warden behind the deal, but plays a relatively small role in the movie. Hawke is good, as always, but it’s really the setting and the sound design that give the movie most of its tension.
I liked it.
I’m just not sure I’d tell you to pay to see it.
