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September 18, 2026

At the Movies: Ethan Hawke leads a tense, Depression-era thriller in ‘The Weight'

By LINDSEY BAHR
AP Film Writer

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"The Weight" is a historical thriller directed by Padraic McKinley that follows a desperate ex-soldier forced to smuggle gold through the wilderness during the Great Depression.

In April 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order banning the hoarding of gold and requiring Americans to deliver excess quantities to a Federal Reserve Bank by that May. The policy isn't the subject of much discussion in the tense and earthy thriller “The Weight,” but it does set the stage for a heist, in which a group of work camp prisoners are assembled for a dangerous, off-the-books gold smuggling job, with Ethan Hawke leading the charge.


 
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