Movie Review: Ethan Hawke leads a tense, Depression-era thriller in ‘The Weight’

In April 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order banning the hoarding of gold and requiring Americans to deliver excess quantities to a Federal Reserve Bank by that May. The policy isn't the subject of much discussion in the tense and earthy thriller “The Weight,” but it does set the stage for a heist, in which a group of work camp prisoners are assembled for a dangerous, off-the-books gold smuggling job, with Ethan Hawke leading the charge.

Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, a single father to a young daughter, Penny (Avy Berry), who is struggling to make ends meet four years into the Great Depression. Murphy is smart, capable and honest, which does not necessarily benefit him or his daughter in these greedy and violent times. They return from church one day to find they’ve been evicted from their apartment. On the search for a new one, some toughs give them a hard time. But self-defense excuses only go so far when the agitator you’ve punched in the face is a police officer. Soon, Murphy is being shipped off to a work camp. If he’s not out in time, Penny will become a ward of the state.

With a raspy voice and a world-weary look, Murphy tries to keep to himself at the camp. But he can’t help but distinguish himself as a resourceful problem solver, and the warden, Clancy ( Russell Crowe ), takes notice. Clancy isn’t your run-of-the-mill sadistic, mustache-twirling kind of warden. He can seem even a little likable at times. But he's also the one with all the power: It’s hard to know if he can be trusted even if he gives the workers the occasional day off. Still, when Clancy promises that if Murphy pulls off the gold job, he’ll sign papers to free Murphy so that he can reunite with Penny, he decides it's a bet worth taking.

So Murphy puts together a team of fellow prisoners: Singh (Avi Nash), Olson (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen) and Rankin (Austin Amelio) to help transport heavy gold bars from point A to B through the wet Oregon wilderness (played by Bavaria). There are also a few deeply suspicious and ornery guys who are working for the ones planning the operation, and a Native American woman, Anna (Julia Jones), who joins the trek as well. It’s a big group trying to stay under the radar on this white-knuckle journey, in which they have to figure out how to cross a broken rope bridge with the heavy gold (it involves a very stressful tossing and catching scheme) and ford a river to cover their tracks. No one is sure they can trust anyone in the group. And then there’s the wild card terror of the giggly lone vagrant looking for something to eat and wondering what exactly is in all those heavy-looking bags.

Hawke feels natural in this environment, clad in denim workwear that may have been standard issue at the time but also looks like something your average Brooklynite dad would wear. And he’s believable as the guy whose brain gets him out of more scrapes than his brawn.

“The Weight” comes from director Padraic McKinley and writers Matthew Chapman, Matthew Booi and Shelby Gaines, who keep the momentum going at a rousing and confident clip.

It is very much a “dad movie,” which isn’t, in this case, a bad or even limiting thing. More than a few people have compared it to something Clint Eastwood might have done at some point — just a solid, hearty, meat-and-potatoes kind of movie.

“The Weight,” a Vertical release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “language and some violence and bloody images.” Running time: 115 minutes. Three stars out of four.