Two Fridays ago, almost no one saw The Weight, a well-reviewed period thriller directed by Padraic McKinley. I’m here to tell you why you should.
Ethan Hawke leads The Weight as Murphy, a single father desperate to find a new apartment for himself and his seven-year-old daughter after being evicted. The year is 1933, and the Great Depression is in full misery. As Murphy and Penny (played by Avy Berry) seek a new home, three overzealous cops in plain clothes provoke Murphy into a fight, and in short order, Murphy is in prison and his daughter in a temporary home.
The crux of the drama is then provided by Russell Crowe’s crooked Warden Clancy, who offers Murphy a task which, upon completion, will result in Murphy’s early release. Time is of the essence as Penny will be made a ward of the state in one month. Murphy has six months left on his sentence. The task is to take four stolen bags of gold through the Oregon wilderness. Murphy and three fellow convicts must brave the rugged terrain, cold temperatures, and mountain men with their own ideas about where that gold should go. Two of the warden’s men also oversee their trek, and, to put it mildly, they are not friendly.
The Weight’s simple setup is to its benefit. We know the stakes, we know the plan, and we know, because we’ve seen movies before, that the journey will not be smooth. In another film of this kind, the familiarity might bring about boredom. But McKinley’s muscular direction (reminiscent of a more artful Walter Hill), and Hawke’s austere, forceful performance keep The Weight from feeling rote.
Making an impressive feature film debut as a director, McKinley makes great use of the Bavarian wild (which substitutes seamlessly for the Pacific Northwest), where a single misstep could result in death, or just as significantly, the type of injury that makes it impossible for one of the crew to continue, which might just result in death as well. The action sequences are daringly chaotic, with McKinley’s camera mirroring the panic and confusion of being trapped under logs floating downstream, or fighting for your life in the dark of night.
Cinematographer Matteo Cocco’s use of darkness over light brought to mind Robert Elswitt’s photography from Paul Thomas Anderson’s classic There Will Be Blood. Shades of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (honor among thieves), Deliverance (mountain man vs. the protagonists), and William Friedkin’s Sorcerer (there’s even a great rope bridge scene). The Weight may be a step below the films I’ve referenced (the ending is a bit too neat, and the anachronistic needle drop into the credits is off-tone), but it’s still only a baby step. The Weight’s premise and the predicaments that spring forth are imaginative and nerve-rattling.
But what really matters most in The Weight is Ethan Hawke. Russell Crowe does some of his best work in years, as his warden bookends the film with barely concealed malice. His tone may say “trust me,” but his eyes are telling another story. Julia Jones is also quite good as a Native American woman who convinces the men to bring her along, based on her knowledge of the area they must traverse. But The Weight rises and falls with its star, and Hawke, an industrious former soldier who constantly thinks his way through every step, is aces.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Hawke can carry a movie like The Weight; he’s been very good to great for a long time now. Even so, I think Hawke had been modestly undervalued as an actor. Hawke is now 55, and age has given him tools that he didn’t have as a young man. His voice is gruffer; the silver in his hair and the lines on his face have added gravitas to his toolkit. While still quite handsome, Hawke has embraced the aging process instead of fighting it.
His growth as an actor who has been on camera since his teens has quietly resulted in one of the most eclectic and interesting resumes of any actor in his era. Hawke has excelled in the mainstream (Dead Poets Society, Training Day, The Magnificent Seven), the art house (the Before trilogy, First Reformed, Blue Moon), and has become something of a horror icon with Black Phone, The Purge, and Sinister listed among his credits. He has quietly amassed five Oscar nominations—three as an actor (including one for Best Actor last year in Blue Moon) and two for screenwriting (the second and third Before films). He is this generation’s Jeff Bridges–an actor that we respect, but can’t fully value his work until we run down the list of credits. It’s not just the films we readily know, either. Hawke has appeared in numerous quality films that have been underseen and are now just waiting for their cult to arrive.
The Weight is another film that belongs on that overlooked list, along with Tesla (yes, he plays Nikola), Predestination, and his turn as a modern-day haunted son in Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet.
Hawke’s filmography is diverse and unique, and it reveals him as one of the best actors of his generation. That thought didn’t hit me until I saw him play the famous abolitionist John Brown in the outstanding limited series The Good Lord Bird. To play John Brown, an actor has to go big to capture the madness that roiled this legendary Civil War figure. I would have never thought of Hawke as John Brown. Hawke tends to underplay his parts, trusting the material. But when necessary, Hawke can turn it up to eleven without losing the character.
Murphy is not that kind of man. He is decent, taciturn, vulnerable, but determined. When we talk of actors with great range, Hawke is not a name that readily comes to mind. But it should. Because Hawke really is that good. The Weight is really good, too. Catch it in theaters now if you can; if not, find it on streaming later. Become one of the first members of Ethan Hawke’s latest cult film entry, and then consider what a tremendous actor he has become. He is one of the greats.
