A nice surprise at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was Padraic McKinley’s “The Weight,” which was met with positive reviews and even finished third in IndieWire’s critics poll of the fest.
I guess it’s just a sign of the times that the film has been acquired by Vertical Entertainment, with a wide theatrical release planned for Sept. 18. I don’t understand how Netflix picks up “In the Hand of Dante,” but not this one, which is a commercial action-adventure with two star actors front and center.
“The Weight” stars Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe, and follows a widower (Hawke) in 1930s Oregon who is taken from his daughter to serve a prison sentence. Prison warden Clancy (Crowe) offers Samuel and several other prisoners the opportunity to earn their freedom in exchange for partaking in a dangerous gold-smuggling operation for him.
This is the directorial debut of Padraic McKinley, with the film landing a 94% “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes. They don’t make many movies like these anymore, even with two big actors attached, but it seems that studios neither produce nor distribute them well, as the lack of interest from other studios suggests.