THE WEIGHT : Tuesday 22nd September 2026

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'THE WEIGHT' this week at my local independent movie theatre, and this German and American Co-Produced historical drama film is Directed and Co-Edited by Padraic McKinley in his feature film making debut. The film had its World Premiere screening at this years Sundance Film Festival in late January and had its International Premiere out of competition at the Berlin International Film Festival in mid-February. It was released in the US last week too, having garnered generally favourable critical reviews, and so far grossing US$2.5M.

The film opens with an aerial shot of a deserted gravel back road in Eugene, Oregon in 1933 - four years into the Great Depression. Driving down that road at almost break neck speed in Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke) with his young daughter Penny (Avy Berry) sat in the back seat whooping for joy while getting tossed around and urging her father to go faster. We then see the pair in their apartment later that night with Murphy attempting to darn a hole in a sock, and saying that he can fix motor cars, build an engine, and that he even made Penny, and that he can sure mend a hole in a sock, to which Penny retorts that she's not so sure. The next day or two and the pair climb the stairs to their apartment to find all their worldly possessions out on the landing and the lock changed - they have been evicted, and must find a new place to live. Later, down an alley way with Penny. while knocking on a prospective landlord’s door, three men approach, demand to know what they’re up to, and warn them against 'squatting'. The resultant confrontation quickly rises into an all out brawl. As it transpires one of the men Murphy punched was a plainclothes Policeman. The authorities place Penny in children's home and sentence her father to one year in the remote Deschutes County Convict Labor Camp, overseen by Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe) - an imposing man who seems to relish in breaking down his prisoners spirits through intimidating, punishing, and by assigning tasks he knows are almost impossible.

Clancy then puts Murphy in charge of one such task - to remove a huge boulder that sits in the way of a road, and that needs to be cleared today, because tomorrow is Sunday, and the Warden has a baseball game planned for the prisoners versus the guards and the result is one game all, and if the boulder is not removed today then the prisoners forfeit the game and Clancy will not be happy, at all. Murphy surprises Clancy by taking charge and getting the job done with ingenuity, by using two pump up jacks, and getting two other prisoners to hammer two holes in the rock on opposite sides, and having them then insert the ends of their wooden pick axe handles into the holes and pushing with all their might. Eventually, the boulder moves, only slightly at first, but with momentum it is eventually shifted and rolled away. Watching Murphy successfully accomplish the task, Clancy realises he’s a good leader with many useful skills, who is a man of his word and gets the job done without fuss. 

So, after getting Murphy to fix up his Ford Model 18 which had several mechanical problems and which he had purloined from some criminal bootlegger who was now serving time, Clancy offers him a chance at freedom and getting his daughter back. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had recently set in motion a proclamation whereby in an attempt to slow down or even halt the currency deflation that was extending the Depression, his administration had decided to take the US off the gold standard, and began sending federal marshals around the country to withdraw gold held in vaults by the Federal Reserve Bank. Murphy will lead a team of three other trustworthy inmates to steal the gold bars kept at Klamath Falls gold mining camp deep in the forest before the Feds get their hands on them, then bring them to Clancy, who will divide them between himself and his partners. The drop off point is fifty miles away through dense forest terrain, and Murphy and his team have six days to make the rendezvous. For successfully completing the mission, Clancy will give the participating inmates early release papers dated to the day of their return with the gold. Murphy can hardly refuse the offer, as Penny will become a ward of the State in five months, long before his sentence ends.

And so the gang of four set out, having been giving their strict orders by Taggert (Alec Newman), who in no uncertain terms sets out his very clear expectations for their upcoming mission. There is Singh (Avi Nash) an Indian American socialist, Olson (Lucas Lynggaard Tonnesen) a Scandinavian immigrant, Rankin (Austin Amelio) the bad apple of the group, and Anna (Julia Jones) an Indigenous runaway who was living at the mining camp, but decided to flee and hooks up with the gang after the fact and acts as their cook and medic. And then accompanying the group there are two of Clancy's armed foot soldiers who are loyal to the Warden, and are not afraid to throw their weight around - Letender (George Burgess) and Amis (Sam Hazeldine).

What follows is a series of action set pieces that put the group through their paces, that involve them traversing a rickety old rope bridge; a river crossing involving a log jam in which Murphy gets caught under; stealing a couple of boats belonging to a group of nefarious locals who seem determined to come between the group and their mission; and a brutal fist fight between Letender and Murphy. Needless to say it doesn't end well for two of the group. 

And so after six days battling the elements and each other, the remaining group make their rendezvous point ahead of time. They rest up for the night, and are greeted the next morning with three members of the group missing and Taggert having pulled up in his car waiting for the knapsacks full of gold bars to be loaded onto his vehicle. Singh and Amis are the only ones around, and Murphy appears out of the woods having just fought with Letender, who was strangled to death by Rankin. A shoot out follows in which Murphy guns down Amis, while Taggert makes off in his car laden with the gold bars. Murphy commandeers a passing US Government car which has a speed limiter of 35MPH, and so stops the car with little hope of catching up to Taggert. He opens up the hood, plays around with the engine and disengages the speed limiter, and so the chase is back on. Murphy catches up with Taggert and runs his vehicle off the road causing it to flip end over end down a steep embankment and coming to rest on its roof. 

Murphy, Anna, Singh and Rankin return to the work camp and confront Clancy. They have the gold in their possession but Murphy outlines how the deal is going to go down, saying that they are prepared to split the gold equally including a share for the Olson family and for him to take a share, in exchange for signing their release papers there and then, for his silence and for their silence in not revealing his complicity in the crime. And one other thing Murphy asks for - the vehicle that he fixed up for the Warden the previous week, and the registration papers to be signed over. The deal is done, and everyone walks away happy and content, and Murphy is reunited with Penny as they drive off at speed in their new car down the back roads of Oregon. 

For first time Director Padraic McKinley, he has delivered us a film with 'The Weight' that is a throw back to the movies of yesteryear with an all too relatable story, strong performances, beautiful scenery, some moments of tension and a thumping soundtrack. All kudos must go to the understated everyman performance of Ethan Hawke, who is light on dialogue but high on emotional facial expressions in this tale of stolen gold bullion and ne'er do well crims masquerading as upstanding law abiding citizens. Beautifully filmed, this is a movie for Dad's everywhere wanting to sit back and enjoy a confidently made historical survival thriller the like of which is all too thin on the ground these days. 

'The Weight' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

COLD PURSUIT : Tuesday 12th February 2019

'COLD PURSUIT' which I saw this week is an American action thriller Directed by Norwegian film maker Hans Petter Moland whose previous Directorial credits include 'Zero Kelvin', 'Aberdeen', 'The Beautiful Country' and 2014's 'In Order of Disappearance' - which marked his fourth film with Stellan Skarsgard. And so in 2019 for an English speaking audience, we have a sort of remake of 'In Order of Disappearance', his own film from five years ago and based on the script penned by Danish Writer, Illustrator and Screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson. The film was released in the US and Australia last week, and in the UK on the 22nd of this month, has received generally positive press, and has recouped US$20M of its US$60M production budget so far.

And so to the plot. Here Nelson 'Nels' Coxman's (Liam Neeson) quiet life as a snowplough driver in his Canadian Rocky Mountains remote resort hometown of Kehoe is bittersweet. First up, as the film opens we see him getting dressed up in collar & tie, shirt & cufflinks aided by his wife Grace (Laura Dern), to attend a ceremony to be awarded Kehoe's 'Citizen of the Year'.

Then a few days later comes the tragic news that his beloved son Kyle (Michael Richardson) has died under mysterious circumstances, which the autopsy soon reveals was a heroin overdose. But Nels states that his son was no druggie, so how can that possibly be. After the funeral, Grace becomes distant from Nels upon discovering things about their son they never knew - that he had a social media account, the music he liked to listen to, his favourite films and so on, which makes them wonder how well they really did known their son. Ultimately, in her grief, Grace leaves Nels.

A few days later, Nels is in his snowplough shed, contemplating suicide. He puts a loaded rifle in his mouth poised to pull the trigger when he is interrupted by a young man, badly beaten up and who had taken shelter in the shed from the harsh snow conditions. It turns out that this young man worked with Kyle at the airport as a baggage handler, and got caught on the wrong side of a local drug cartel resulting in his death by lethal heroin injection. Nels coerces the young man to give him a name of who did this to his son - Speedo (Michael Eklund) he mutters out of a bloodied mouth. The next night Nels drives to nearby Denver to track down Speedo and does so to a local nightclub. There Nels confronts Speedo, who comes off considerably worse in the car park where Nels turns vigilante and gets the next name from the criminal before strangling him dead.

That name is Limbo (Bradley Stryker) who works in a boutique wedding outfitters. This time armed with a sawn off shotgun concealed under this jacket, Nels saunters into the shop under the guise of wanting a new Tux with which to wear when he renews his wedding vows with his wife. Limbo is suspicious and pulls a gun only to be beaten to it by Nels, who beats him to the ground with the butt of his shotgun. Wanting another name, Limbo by now has several teeth missing and can hardly speak but blurts out a name before being shot and killed point blank . . . . . that name is Santa.

Santa (Michael Adamthwaite) some time later drives through thick deep snow heading toward Kehoe, followed menacingly close behind by Nels driving his snowplough. Nels takes a right turn and disappears out of sight much to Santa's relief, only to emerge some minutes later ahead of Santa's vehicle and now blocking his way. Nels siddles up to Santa's car and orders him to back up so that he can pass, but instead Santa offers him a couple of hundred dollar bills to move his snowplough, Of course this only serves to annoy the hell out of Nels who through the side window smashes Santa's head against the steering wheel and then pulls him out onto the blade of his snowplough and proceeds to beat the crap out of him with his bare fists, ultimately using his shotgun to dispense with the perpetrator. Nels then slices open ten one kilo bags of cocaine and lets each one blow away in the wind and onto the driven snow.

Meanwhile whilst Nels has been preoccupied with some random killings all linked it seems to his sons death, Trevor 'Viking' Calcote (Tom Bateman) - a local drug lord based out of Denver, has grown very suspicious over the sudden and as yet unexplained disappearance of three of his henchmen. Viking has a young son Ryan (Nicholas Holmes) who attends private school, and whom he shares custody with this estranged wife Aya (Julia Jones) who argue and bicker every time they see each other mostly over visiting rights and the manner in which her soon to be ex-husband chooses to raise their son. Viking lives in a very modern sprawling house, seemingly with a small army of his henchmen who are at his beck and call, and who came through the ranks of the family 'business' when it was ruled over by Viking's revered father.

Viking has suspicions that the unconfirmed deaths of his drug dealing and smuggling goons are the work of a Native American drug cartel controlled by White Bull (Tom Jackson), with whom he has earlier avoided conflict due to a deal initiated by Viking's late father many years ago, and which both sides have steadfastly upheld since . . . . . until now! In retaliation, Viking captures White Bull's only son, interrogates him by beating him near to death and then puts a bullet between his eyes. This sparks a gang war between the two factions which is further sparked when White Bull's dead son is strung up on a mileage signpost on the outskirts of town to be discovered by a local young female detective Kimberly Dash (Emmy Rossum) and her ageing partner Gip (John Doman).

With this going on in the background, Nels visits his brother Brock 'Wingman' Coxman (William Forsythe), a former hitman for Viking's father, seeking advice on Viking and how he should best proceed given that he had already dispensed with three of the drug lords men. Brock suggests hiring a hitman which he does at some cost demanding two thirds up front and the balance when the job is done. But 'Eskimo' (Arnold Pinnock), the hired gun, double crosses Nels and goes to Viking with the news that he is his mark and wants to strike a deal. Viking listens intently and is then angered by his moral standards at double crossing his client, and so kills the hitman.

Viking eventually learns that Coxman has killed his men, and tries in vain to call off the gang war which he mistakenly started while not realising that White Bull intends to wreak his revenge through a blood debt - 'blood for blood, a son for a son'. Viking in the interim has mistakenly identified Brock Coxman, instead of Nels Coxman, as the killer of his three henchmen and so goes in search of him, locating him in his mountain side home and taking him for a ride in his Tesla from which he'll never return.  

Meanwhile, Nels kidnaps Viking's son from his prep school in an attempt to draw the drug lord into an ambush. Unknown to Nels, two of White Bull's men were also waiting at the school ready to kidnap Ryan, and seeing Nels walk off with the young lad give chase. Nels manages to evade them and drives the boy to his home. Viking learns that his son has been kidnapped and becomes increasingly agitated by the lack of contact from the kidnapper. Nels decides to let Viking stew until the morning. He also learns from an orderly at the school who witnessed Nels drive off with Ryan and as such was able to identify him, and now sat in front of Viking wants some reward for the information. Viking happily takes the mans intelligence, and then has his henchmen kill him.

Now realising that there is another Coxman, Viking's gang arrive the next day at the snowplough shed ready to dispense with Nels and retrieve his son. Nels plans for the ambush go awry and is unsuccessful, and he is captured alive. White Bull's gang in the meantime arrive shortly thereafter having tailed Viking's convoy with the intention of vengeance.

During the ensuing shootout, most of the gangsters on both sides are killed. Viking's getaway attempt is thwarted when his car is crushed by a rapidly shorn tree trunk dropped on his car from a height, courtesy of a quick thinking Nels, and is then shot in the chest by White Bull. Viking later dies shortly after being found amongst the carnage by the Kehoe Police Detectives Dash and Gip. As Coxman leaves the property in his snowplough to go back to work, White Bull jumps into the cab and the two men drive away together.

In quite enjoyed 'Cold Pursuit' and here you can expect to see Liam Neeson doing absolutely what he does best, a la 'Taken', 'A Walk Among The Tombstones', 'The Commuter', 'The Grey', 'Unknown', 'Run All Night' and 'Non Stop' et al. But Director Hans Petter Moland has crafted a film that combines just the right amount of wit and dead pan gallows humour with a sure footed story of revenge, drug barons, mistaken identity, a hero on the edge, a villain unhinged and a high body count all combined with the backdrop of the snow swept Rockies. It's a fun ride that has some clear underlying messages about racism, minority groups, greed, drugs, money, violence and relationships but because the body count rises so steeply there is barley time to get invested in the characters before they've exited stage left. Nonetheless, certainly worth a look, and Neeson and Moland don't disappoint. Didn't someone once say 'revenge is a dish best served cold' - how true!

'Cold Pursuit' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-