Ethan Hawke is one of those actors I will follow wherever he chooses to go. Those destinations have landed me at
The Purge, Born to Be Blue, Maudie, First Reformed, The Black Phone,
Leave the World Behind, and
Blue Moon, just to name a few great ones of the last thirteen years of Hawke's career. There have been a few flat tires and dead ends along the way, but Hawke is someone who consistently picks interesting material to star in. And now we have
The Weight. Life changing? No. Highly entertaining? Yes. Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, a single dad who is down on his luck during the Great Depression in 1933. Kicked out of their apartment, Samuel and his young daughter find themselves looking for a home. Samuel gets thrown into the slammer for assaulting a cop and his daughter is thrown into foster care. Samuel is sentenced to hard labour, building a road, breaking rocks with a sledgehammer. The big bad boss man of this prison outfit is J.J. Clancy (Russell Crowe). J.J. finds out quickly that Samuel is one smart cookie - he can fix all aspects of a car and can move a massive stone using his noggin. J.J. offers Samuel early release so he can get his daughter back if he illegally moves (steals) some gold from point A to point B. Samuel agrees and picks a crew to help him, all with the promise of early parole. Thus the adventure ensues. It's kind of like
Cool Hand Luke meets
Sorcerer, with maybe a little
Deliverance and
Sometimes a Great Notion thrown in. Violent and bloody at times, I found myself squirming as Samuel tries to remove the wedding ring from his swollen hand. It's a prison-heist-thriller and it's worth its weight in gold (see what I did there?). Catch it in theatres now or rent it from Movies 'N Stuff when available.
