The Weight
There are no shortage of movies that involve characters running through the forest, trying to outwit pursuers while not falling over a log or off a cliff. There’s the inevitable dangerous river crossing and a broken bone or two. And it’s all here in The Weight along with some additional factors: those on the run are carrying heavy backpacks full of gold (the movie takes place during a mini-Gold Rush in Oregon during the Depression) and none of this gang of six can trust each other. The audience, though, knows it can trust the main character, prisoner Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke), as we’ve spent time with him before he’s arrested and sent into the woods. We know him to be a spectacularly dependable First World War vet and devoted single father who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and has now made a devil’s pact with a lawless lawman (Russell Crowe) in the hopes of earning his freedom.
Watching Hawke’s Samuel make his dangerous journey with very few words but a world of pain, determination and regret in his eyes and weary face, it’s hard not to wish that he had been cast in Matt Damon’s role in The Odyssey – in my opinion, he more embodies the vibe that director Christopher Nolan was going for. As Odysseus, Damon certainly was rocking the Ethan Hawke-esque goatee-beard. And the two actors have a history of being considered for the same parts – ever since Damon and his best bud Ben Affleck lost out to Hawke in Dead Poets Society. Later, Damon was attached to an early version of Training Day, which was eventually recast with Hawke in that role – and he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.
But I digress. Hawke is definitely the right dude for The Weight, and in scenes with Crowe, sparks fly. The Australian star makes the most of his small amount of screen time as a rip-roaringly boisterous good old boy who throws his weight around with absolute delight – but can also sit back on a porch with you, drink a beer and shoot the shit. It’s a small but key role and makes the non-wilderness scenes just as dramatic and thrilling as the ones in the woods. After seeing bird brothers Hawke and Crowe together, you want more collaborations: maybe a Broadway run, an HBO series or, with their shared love of country music, they could even start a band.
Unabomber
Welcome to Russell Crowe’s year of supporting roles – an Oscar category that he has yet to win (unlike his Best Actor honour in 2001 for Gladiator). Just like in The Weight, Crowe shows up in Unabomber as a foil to the protagonist. Crowe’s a Svengali Harvard psychology professor running experiments on young math prodigy, Ted Kaczynski, played by 19-year-old Canadian acting prodigy Jacob Tremblay – who starred as the young boy in Room at age nine.
Crowe is commanding and intoxicating as a compromised academic, and it’s great to see him back at the blackboard 25 years after A Beautiful Mind. And Tremblay is solid in a role that calls for him to toggle between sulky, screamy and didactic as Kaczynski is slowly pushed to the edge of reason and starts to shape the ideas that would become his infamous manifesto, which ran in the newspapers in 1995 – after he already killed three people and injured 23 with bombs sent to their homes or workplaces.
Also giving a complex performance is Shailene Woodley, who plays an FBI agent on the hunt for the Unabomber in the film’s present day. She’s the only one who suspects Kaczynski, which leads to her own suspenseful scene running solo through the woods as she tracks down the Unabomber’s off-the-grid Montana cabin. This is one of those fascinating true crime movies where we already know so many of the details – and remember the manhunt. And yet, for all its familiarity, it feels completely fresh, given the amount of pathos the film shows for the serial killer villain – through the flashbacks of Crowe’s prof and Tremblay as young Ted. And, if it wasn’t for the absolutely overdone and distracting background score, which goes all in on menacing violin blows, this would be a truly intellectually engaging and terrifying watch.
Heart of the Beast
Take everything that Ethan Hawke’s character faced in The Weight and multiply it by 10 for Brad Pitt’s retired Special Forces Army Officer James Belmont in this survival-in-the-bush tale: there are more broken bones, more dangerous river crossings and bloody run-ins with wildlife. But at least this time out, our hero can trust his trekking mate, the mighty Odin, a military-combat German Shepherd, who has retired after a recent war took his leg and some teeth – don’t worry he’s been built back up, with no expense spared. At the start, they are just a couple of ex-Green Berets trying to take in some nature – fly fishing for Pitt (for those A River Runs Through It fans) and rough-and-tumble games of fetch and tug for “Odie.” Soon enough, though, everything goes wrong and they are lost in the Alaskan wilderness with seemingly no way out.
At the public preview screening, the host started off the night by saying, “Who doesn’t love dogs?” which got a moderate amount of hoots and claps, followed by “Who doesn’t love Brad Pitt?” – which got significantly less. Right now, Pitt is in a limbo zone of popularity as all but one of his six children with Angelina Jolie have dropped his name – and he’s admitted to dropping his own sobriety. But it’s not like he’s cancelled, and Heart of the Beast is the kind of movie that draws a crowd – especially when it’s done with the tense drama and precision of director David Ayer (The Beekeeper; End of Watch). Whatever misgivings you may have about being out in the elements are ramped up to the extreme. And if you’ve ever been afraid of being swept away by rapids, hitting every rock and tree along the way, you’ll want to close your eyes through at least one pivotal scene.
At other times, you’ll likely need to wipe those eyes, as this stoic duo does their best to keep calm and carry on. It’s a very unflashy, sympathetic role for Pitt that won’t offend those who are on the fence about his off-screen persona. And for those who still want the cocky and charming Brad of Ocean’s 11 and F1, they only have to wait until December when The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth (the standalone sequel to Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood) hits theatres – and Pitt returns to the role that won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Coincidentally, Cliff also has a dog.
