The Weight

There’s nothing wrong with being old-fashioned. Padraic McKinley’s Great Depression gold heist flick has a welcome ’70s vibe and a careworn charm, mostly emanating from the always trusty Ethan Hawke.

Hawke, Oscar-nominated for his melancholic turn in Blue Moon, is down-but-not-yet-out dad Samuel. With no work to be found, he’s scraping by on the generosity of neighbours, who create odd jobs for loose change. But this can’t keep the bailiffs from their door, sneakily evicting him and peppy daughter Ava (A Quiet Place: Day One’s Avy Berry) while they’re at church. 

Spying a vacant apartment in the local paper, he attempts to break in so they can squat, but is accosted by brutal cops and promptly sent to a labour camp, clearing a gold mine closed by order of President Roosevelt. With at least six months’ back-breaking work ahead of him, he stands to lose his daughter too: Penny, now a ward of the state, may well be adopted out before they can be reunited.

However, Samuel’s resourcefulness in applying smart thinking to a stubborn boulder attracts the favour of his boss, Clancy (the appealingly grizzled Russell Crowe). Though this gift horse comes loaded with hidden perils.

Clancy recruits Samuel, plus confederates Olson (Borgen’s Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen), Singh (Avi Nash), an Indian-American with a head full of socialism, and the sketchy Rankin (Austin Amelio) to help him smuggle out bricks of bullion. Having closed all the mines, President Roosevelt has ordered them to be seized to fix the economy.

The party must pass through treacherous woods to get the goods to the pick-up point within five days. The catch? Lose just one bar and they’ll all be killed.

The kind of band-against-the-odds adventure that used to fill cinemas back in the day

The Weight is the kind of ragtag, band-against-the-odds adventure that used to fill cinemas back in the day. There are some head-scratching moments, particularly as one of the gang turns during a fraught log-jammed river sequence. Their treacherous intent is far too easily forgiven, largely down to too-choppy editing by McKinley and Matthew Woolley. Some of the characters get a little lost, too. Singh’s early promise is sidelined, and the addition of ace First Nations actor Julia Jones (Wind River) falls into tropes.

But The Weight has flashes of greatness too, including a vertiginous rope bridge sequence that, while it doesn’t quite reach the heights of Sorcerer, will have you tensing in your seat. It’s a shame that Gaines and his sibling composer Latham’s blaring electro score feels out of place, rather than energising like Tangerine Dream’s in that William Friedkin movie.

A touch overlong, it would also have benefited from being shot on film to really work that grainy ‘70s feel, however logistically difficult. If not quite worth its weight in gold, McKinley’s offering scores silver for its simple thrills.

The Weight premiered at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival.