The Weight

I always love "frontier" movies. The thought of how it felt for the pioneers to explore an essentially lawless and unmaped wilderness is at the very least intellectually enticing and makes for a great movie. "The weight" is not quite a frontier movie because it's set in Klamath Falls during the great depression, a much later period, but still drinks from the same fountain by describing a group of convicts carrying a heavy gold cargo through wilderness with the hopes it will grant them freedom. The plot twists are quite predictable and the end very vanilla and exactly what the viewer will expect, but it's an overall fun movie and the visuals make it better.

Struggling to keep the roof over the heads of himself and his daughter, "Murphy" (Ethan Hawke) gets embroiled in a fist-fight that sees him condemned to an hard labour sentence and his daughter taken into care. He knows that his chances of getting her back before she is adopted are fairly remote, but perhaps the boss at his road-building camp might be able to help? "Murphy" is an adaptable sort, quick-thinking and problem-solving, and that impresses "Clancy" (Russell Crowe) who makes him a proposition. Select three of his friends and set off on a trek across the pristine wilderness on a special project. If it all goes to plan then upon his return he will be released in time to rescue "Penny". Meanwhile, in a Washington D.C. struggling with the great depression, President Roosevelt has confiscated all private gold holdings from the mines and so with his agents en-route, one shrewd manager determines to shift his tonnage out of harm's way. Yep, that turns out to be the very task for "Murphy", his pals and their two armed escorts whose purpose is never really quite clear but easy it isn't going to be as they set of across the unforgiving terrain. Things only get more difficult when they are joined by the escaping "Anna" (Julia Jones) and then become aware that some locals are all set to do their very own "Deliverance" (1972) on the group, too. As they travel we are introduced to the group, exposed to their foibles and demons and for the savvy "Murphy" - essentially quite a decent family man - it proves to be quite eye-opening and painful. For a while this is quite a claustrophobic drama that examines many of the motivations for those caught up in the poverty and hopelessness of the times. Each character from their group seems to tick a box in terms of their character, their malevolence or decency and with Jones proving quite effective at simultaneously stabilising and upsetting their ship, the drama has quite a potent intensity to it. Sadly for me, though, there was always something a little circular about the plot and as we get into the last half hour serendipity played just a little too much of a part. The often quite intense photography captures the perils of their journey well and there are a few set-piece action scenes - including the bullion equivalent of dwarf-tossing, that kept it interesting for a while but with the jeopardy gradually ebbing away I left feeling a little disappointed and thinking it was more of a wait than a weight.