The Weight (United States, 2026)

A period piece thriller set during the Great Depression, The Weight echoes aspects of the classic The Wages of Fear without being a copy and suffers only from the occasional too-obvious contrivance used to increase suspense. Director Padraic McKinley (making his debut behind the camera) also employs an annoying stylistic quirk of "flash-forwarding" during certain high-octane moments. I suppose this is intended to amplify tension but it has the opposite effect by briefly disorienting the audience and taking them out of the moment.

The setup is rather lengthy; it takes nearly a half-hour before all the pieces are in place and the dangerous journey can begin. Ethan Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, a single father whose skills as a mechanic haven't provided him with enough money to keep a roof over his head and that of his young daughter. When an alleyway encounter with a creepy cop leads to an assault conviction, Murphy finds himself doing hard time breaking rocks under the thumb of iron-fisted warden Clancy (Russell Crowe). Clancy is impressed by Murphy's intelligence and resilience and offers him a deal: do a "favor" for him and he'll deliver an immediate release. The "favor" involves recruiting three of his fellow prisoners—Rankin (Austin Amelio), Singh (Avi Nash), and Olson (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen)—on a mission to smuggle gold through 100 miles of treacherous Pacific Northwest wilderness. They are joined on this trek by two handlers, Amis (Sam Hazeldine) and Letender (George Burgess), and a Native American woman, Anna (Julia Jones).

For more than an hour, the group of seven traverses the unforgiving terrain, encountering a series of increasingly dangerous obstacles along the way. Of these, the one that feels the most forced and unlikely is the rickety rope bridge (a probable homage to The Wages of Fear). Most of the other stumbling blocks work well within the framework of the story, with a sequence featuring a river crossing being by far the most suspenseful.

Gold is heavy, of course, so transporting it isn't just a matter of tossing some dust into a sack and walking away. What's more, the recipient at the far end expects all of the gold to arrive. If even a single bar goes missing, everyone will pay with their lives. So, although the movie doesn't include the hook of having a truck full of nitroglycerin to worry about, the gold bars serve the same function, especially in the bridge crossing. Lose one and everything goes "boom!"

The film takes some time to play with the dynamics within the group. Murphy, normally an aloof loner, is forced into a leadership role. He forges a fractious relationship with Rankin, who nearly causes his death at one point, and has something that comes close to a romance with Anna. (Although the most loving scene between the two is a hard-to-watch moment when she uses a needle and twine to remove a wedding band from his swollen finger.) As the narrative unfolds, it becomes increasingly obvious that Letender, a hulking presence with limited imagination and no discernible evidence of empathy, is going to become as much a problem as the trackers pursuing them through the forest.

Ethan Hawke's best scenes are the ones that don't force him into fight mode. Especially at his age, he's not a convincing action hero (although, at least in this case, he most definitely doesn't turn into a superhero, instead mostly getting his ass kicked). But he's very good in the smaller, more dramatic moments. Russell Crowe is excellent as the warden, a corrupt administrator who's nevertheless likable in his own way. The narrative doesn't give him much screen time but he makes the most of what he has. Of Murphy's companions, the only one to leave much of an impression is Julia Jones, whose Anna is a portrait of cool, calm efficiency.

Although the overall level of suspense doesn't come close to what Henri-Georges Clouzot achieved in his 1953 masterpiece (or, for that matter, what William Friedkin offered in his underrated remake, Sorcerer), The Weight does an effective job of keeping the audience at the edge of their seats for about two-thirds of the running time. The setting and production design are successful at establishing a level of believability for the dangers and, with the exception of the aforementioned stylistic choice, McKinley understands how to wring the most tension from each set piece. The Weight ultimately works because it doesn't feel like a cookie-cutter action thriller and delivers enough of an adrenaline rush to keep the viewer from overthinking some of the less credible aspects of the story. I'd hesitate to call this a "hidden gem," but it's worth seeking out if the overall cinematic landscape seems a little barren at the moment.

The Weight (United States, 2026)