OK, so check this out. The year is 1933 and you’re one of four guys selected to lug gold bars across the forest trails of Oregon. If you lose a single gold bar, heads will roll, including your own. You come across a rickety footbridge spanning two cliffs. Imagine the one in Temple of Doom, only not as solid. The bridge holds exactly one person at a time. It does not hold a person AND a pack of gold, just a person.
How do you get the gold across without losing a single bar to the gorge below? I know what you’re thinking: “Well, first you have to take the fox AND the grain across the gorge … wait. That’s a different problem.”
That is one problem among many proposed by The Weight, a movie about prisoners outside of prison. To tell the truth, it looks kinda nice; it’s like camping at gunpoint, which, for me, was camping. May as well be in prison, amIright? Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke) is a single father of an adorable little girl. At 55, Ethan Hawke is too old for this role by about twenty years, but we like Ethan Hawke and we’re trying to reward him for Blue Moon and Boyhood. Is it working?
Samuel has mad practical physics skillz and mad integrity, but terrible luck. In the opening, he demonstrates superior mechanical knowledge, but fails to cash in when a mark practically begs him to overcharge her for a car repair. In the following scene, he and his child are kicked out of their apartment. After that, he explores new apartments and gets caught in an alley by bullies while trying to find a super. The bullies turn out to be undercover officers. Sam is sent to a chain gang. The kid is sent to a home.
On the road, Sam laments that his sentence -even with parole- will not conclude before his child becomes a ward of the state. However, road Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe) makes him a deal – do this task and I’ll sign your papers to freedom. The task turns out to be hauling gold before the Feds can claim it. Uh oh. And there’s a fair amount of gold here. Uh oh. But not enough so that one bar won’t be missed. Uh oh.
So, now we’re back at paragraph one: four cons, all brick laden. Four packs of gold. Two deputies with shotguns. Six days of hiking in wooded Oregon. One task. But if
the task goes south, everybody dies. Oh, and there’s also Gollum-like hanger-on and a bunch of backwoods redneck thieves willing to kill for the gold. If that sounds like quite a plot, it is. I was constantly wondering what I’d do in similar circumstances.
The Weight milks the natural integrity of Ethan Hawke as much as any film can. We know he’s gonna do right because he has a daughter to get back to. Greed can’t rule his day when the only treasure is fatherhood. Samuel’s integrity, unfortunately, makes the film a little basic. We know how Samuel is going to react in almost every scene because he has to get back to his child. Plus the film is pretty simple. We know that greed is going to play a big part in the action sooner-or-later. For all this might be a paint-by-numbers script, I enjoyed the film and rooted hard for Samuel to get back to his kid. Yes, the entire set-up is fraught with contrivance and emotional manipulation, but that doesn’t mean I want the kid to lose her father, even if he is twenty years too old for that role.
There once was a mechanic named Sam
Who had just one child as his fam
He got hauled away
Vowing he’d return one day
Hopefully, not while on the lam
Rated R, 113 Minutes
Director: Padraic McKinley
Writer: Matthew Booi, Leo Scherman, Matthew Chapman
Genre: Tales from eras that sucked
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Who doesn’t love a good chain gang tale?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Uptight wardens
