Resident Evil - Padlock Humor

Resident Evil isn’t a film franchise that I get too excited about. I liked the first film okay, but I got tired of the hyper-stylized sequels early on and only recently revisited them to finish the series, and I still haven’t watched 2021’s Welcome to Raccoon City. In other words, the franchise itself was not the draw when this new film was announced; writer/director Zach Cregger was. 

I loved Cregger’s first two films, Barbarian and Weapons, so I knew this new Resident Evil would likely have a few disturbing moments and plenty of humor throughout. Where it differs from his previous work is the pacing. His first two films have flashbacks and disjointed timelines, but Resident Evil is very much a video game movie in that it is always moving forward with clear objectives. 

As a bigger fan of the Resident Evil games than the films, this new movie excited me. But I am not a superfan by any means. I’ve only played a handful of the games. That actually puts me in the sweet spot for this movie because I don’t care that there are no video game characters included in this film, but I know enough of the game to understand a few Easter eggs scattered throughout. Anyone expecting a straight up adaptation of any storyline from any game in the series will be disappointed.

Anyone expecting a straight up horror movie will be disappointed, too. Resident Evil, despite being a part of the zombie genre, is much more a monster movie than a zombie film. Yes, the dead come back to life, but early on we get some gnarly, nightmarish creatures. This leads to plenty of creepy moments, especially since the film takes place entirely at night and features locales like abandoned farms, tunnels, sewers, etc. Everything is there for this to be both a standard horror movie and adaptation, but it’s great because it’s neither of those things.

First, there are enough zombie movies and TV shows already, so even if this was a good one, it would still be a little boring. This is why leaning into the franchise’s more monstrous-type of enemies is a good move. As for the adaptation aspect, that’s been tried before both with the Paul W.S. Anderson series in which they shoe-horned in characters like Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong to mediocre effect. And the attempt to make an extremely faithful adaptation with Welcome to Raccoon City was largely ignored, so why try that again so soon?

But Resident Evil is still a video game movie, which is a genre that has been notoriously tricky to adapt. Video games are inherently silly, and Cregger’s film plays into that. There may not be specific plotlines or characters from the games in this film, but plenty of other video games elements are present. The games have clear boundaries you cannot pass, and the film hilariously portrays that with the use of different padlocks. In a running gag, the main character, Bryan (an excellently bumbling Austin Abrams), tries to shoot padlocks to no effect. This is one of those silly game moments. Often, especially in older games, simple things like locks and fences are nonsensically impossible to get past, so it was nice to see that element in the film. 

More than that, Bryan serves as a surrogate for the gamer audience. He levels up throughout the movie, getting better weapons and getting better at handling increasingly insane situations. From a movie standpoint, he will appear very stupid, and audiences will likely be talking to the screen asking, “Why are you doing that?” But from a game perspective, we know he has to. Being even a casual gamer isn’t a requirement to enjoy this film, but it certainly helped in my case, and I definitely felt seen when Abrams proclaimed, “Yeah! Video games!” after a triumphant moment. 

Because of this, Resident Evil, like most video games, is more about the experience than the plot or character development. The plot isn’t an issue, as simple is sometimes better, especially in a video game adaptation. Bryan is a medical courier who needs to get something to a hospital, and zombies and creatures are in his way. No need for superfluous mythology. As for character, there are little elements, such as Bryan having fears of becoming a parent. But the film doesn’t have time to get too bogged down with it (and there is one gross sequence that amplifies that fear). It’s more important that Bryan is simply likable enough that we want to see him succeed, and Abrams handles that seemingly effortlessly. Sure, Bryan does plenty of stuff the audience might find stupid, but he never becomes one of those horror characters that you want to see bad things happen to. 

There were a lot of ways this film could go wrong, but Zach Cregger found a way to walk that fine line between grisly and funny, which is exactly what a series like Resident Evil needed. 

Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)

When I saw that first padlock, I knew even driving through it wouldn’t break it, and I also knew that the padlock at the hospital could be taken out with a gun. These are things that you just know from playing video games. 

As a fan of Blank Check with Griffin and David, it was great to see Griffin Newman in the lab scene along with Zach Cherry, who has been a guest on the podcast multiple times. They’re currently doing the Resident Evil movies on Patreon, but Newman hadn’t revealed he was in the movie until the most recent episode covering Retribution. The crazy thing for me is that I almost had his part spoiled for me. I was ready to listen to the Retribution episode, but I had another podcast to finish first, so I didn’t get to start it until on the way home from watching this movie. I was minutes away from having that surprise ruined for me. 

As for that ending, I did find it a bit of a missed opportunity. I know Cregger is done with any Whitest Kids U Know stuff after Trevor Moore died, and aside from a tray of hot dogs in Weapons that might or might not be a reference to the show, he hasn’t included any of the remaining cast in his films. But how great would it have been if the rest of the WKUK guys, including Cregger (who did the voice on the intercom), had been the fuck-up scientists on the top floor along with Cherry and Newman. It would have been distracting as fuck, but seeing all those dudes in lab coats fucking up a cure to save the world would have been great.

As I stated above, I’m not a super fan of the games, having only played a handful. But I did still notice some obvious references like the healing sprays in the barn, the typewriter in the farmhouse, the way the alleys were like a closed off maze, and the emphasis on keeping track of ammo. I’m sure there are plenty more, but nothing felt too silly or forced to me, which is the most important thing.

I’ve seen some people compare this to a John Carpenter movie, and I kind of agree. Cregger certainly likes this genre, and he’s talked about not venturing too far out of it. 

As much as I liked Bryan, I was glad he didn’t get the antidote at the end. First off, there just can’t be a happy ending after everything that happened. And how would that have worked, anyway? He had eaten and morphed with five or six people at that point. What happens to them? And how does he live with that if the antidote works? Better to stay a monster.

Bryan’s realization that he wants to have a child with his girlfriend (which he only realizes as he’s conveniently about to transform into a monster) made me worry he was going to be okay at the end of the film, which would have sucked because then this would have turned into some metaphor for growing up and becoming a parent or some shit. Fuck that. I don’t need every horror movie to be a metaphor for shit. Sometimes it can just be a fun horror movie.

That written, there is still plenty of parenthood fear shit going on here, but it’s pretty blatant. I mean, a crazy long-armed monster baby gets a thirty second reveal in a maternity ward that Bryan is forced to enter. That’s not exactly subtext. But I did love that he immediately killed it as if to say, “This isn’t about parenthood. That’s a fucked up monster baby, and it needs to die.”

I always enjoy the title popping up fifteen plus minutes in a movie.

I don’t want to dwell on this, but I saw so much bitching online about this not being like the games enough. I’m sure a lot of it is clickbait garbage, but there are also real people that probably feel this way. To them, I say, “What the fuck?” If you wanted more of the Paul W.S. Anderson shit, then just rewatch those. There’s no need to replicate that. And if you want more of a straightforward adaptation, there’s the Raccoon City movie or all the animated movies. What else was there to try with this series than this? And not to mention, Cregger has said he’s done with it, but you know the studio isn’t. There will be sequels, and the world is not established to allow video game characters to be introduced. And guess what, it’ll probably fucking suck. I just can’t imagine being a fan of this series and being upset with this film when so many other iterations already exist. You always have the option to pick and choose which movies and shows you watch. Maybe skip this one if you just want to see one of the games faithfully recreated.

The Last Boy Scout - Arrow 4K

The Last Boy Scout is getting the 4K treatment from Arrow next week, so I got a chance to check it out, which is timely as the NFL season has begun. This and Any Given Sunday are two movies I enjoy revisiting every season because they expose the dark side of the game. Of course, there’s a lot more to love about The Last Boy Scout (like Kim Coates getting his nose punched into his brain by a hungover Bruce Willis), but the football stuff is exceptionally relevant today.

The master plan of the villain in The Last Boy Scout is to blackmail politicians into legalizing sports gambling. When he kills Damon Wayans’s girlfriend and Bruce Willis’s best friend, they team up to get justice. Along the way there is a lot of violence and wise cracks, along with some football (the opening football scene with Billy Blanks is probably the film’s most famous scene along with the Kim Coates moment). It’s one of those great ‘90s movies we just don’t get anymore that I only love more and more as the years pass. The gambling element hits differently today, though.

Throughout the film, people complain about free agency money ruining football because the players became too greedy. We’re so far beyond the implementation of free agency, and pro sports have become so much bigger since then that this is laughably quaint now. But the gambling plot is unfortunately relevant. Damon Wayans’s character was a superstar who got kicked out of the league for gambling (the physical toll of the game is addressed by his drug addiction, as well). This is just insane by today’s standards as players are allowed to make commercials for gambling, and the NFL in general has completely embraced it.

The only thing that the film is naive about is how gambling became implemented. It didn’t take car bombs, dead strippers, political assassinations and blackmail; simple greed and capitalism took care of it. It all happened thanks to Chris Christie and some Jersey fuckwads worried about the future of Atlantic City (so dead strippers probably were still a part of it). Their lawsuit paved the way for the rest of the states to legalize sports gambling, and that’s why something that used to be handled exclusively by the mob is now being advertised to you multiple times a day by Kevin Hart and LeBron James. Turns out gambling is okay when CEOs and governments can reap the benefits. 

Knowing all this puts a different spin on The Last Boy Scout. It’s just weird to see so much violence perpetuated for something so legal and commonplace in today’s world.

The football stuff is an interesting aspect of the film, but I keep coming back to it for Willis and Wayans. Despite reports of a troubled production in which Willis demanded changes and didn’t get along with Wayans, The Last Boy Scout came out just fine. Willis and Wayans’s characters don’t like each other for most of the film, so their real-life animosity probably helped their performances. I have a soft spot for ‘90s Wayans shit, but Willis is the main draw for me. 

My favorite type of Bruce Willis performance involves self-hatred, hangovers, and smoking, and god damn this movie has that going on. Willis begins the film passed out in his car. Before he drives off, he looks in the mirror and tells himself, “Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. You’re going to lose. Smile, you fuck.” Writer Shane Black confirms in a new interview for this release that he was in a dark place when he wrote this, and it shows. Willis is at his most depressed in this role, but he’s still somehow likable. This film showcases that quality he had, primarily in the ‘90s, of playing someone you would probably hate in real life but would root for in a movie. The Last Boy Scout pushes that to its limits early on, but Willis grows on you, thanks to the constant shit-talking he gets to do with Wayans. And having a lot of dickhead goons around to kill helps, too. 

So smile, you fucks, and check out this great new release of The Last Boy Scout, and revisit a time when the idea of widespread sports gambling was so abhorrent it was only something an over-the-top villain in ‘90s action movie.

Transfer and Special Features 

Arrow always looks great, and if you check out the workprint footage, you’ll get to see how much better the transfer is compared to that untouched footage.

It’s awesome that they got Shane Black for an interview. It's more of a whole career thing, which is great. But he gets into how it all came together. 

He talks about being depressed while writing it. That tracks, because Willis’s character is so fucking depressing in this.

Originally he was supposed to save his wife, but Willis didn't want to do that again after Die Hard.

Danielle Harris talks about cussing, braces, and having fun filming with Taylor Negron, which sounds like a great time.

She tells a Tarantino story. He's a noted Last Boy Scout fan and in Once Upon a Time… he was going to have her yell a cut line from this film at Brad Pitt. But she couldn't film the scene because she gave birth the day they were supposed to shoot the scene. The line was, “Take a bath in my ass!” She promises to try to get it on screen at some point.

There's a featurette with a French dude who literally wrote a book about Tony Scott, so I suppose he's a good choice to talk about Scott for half an hour.

There’s an Interview after a marathon screening of Shane Black films at the American Cinematheque from a couple years ago. It’s not focused on this film, but still, any fan will find it interesting for all the talk about his other work and Joel Silver.

There is some newly found workprint footage with deleted and alternate scenes. They make it very clear that this wasn’t some drastically different cut, just some editing for length and content. The big differences happened to the script before shooting began.

It's nice that each moment has the workprint version followed by the theatrical, and there are explanations of the differences before each scene.

It's all very minor, though some of the more violent edits would have been nice. But overall, this footage isn’t some bombshell discovery of a director’s cut or anything.

There's also an audio commentary with a couple critics that I'm not going to listen to.

And the original script is also included. Actually, the first two drafts are there. Look, I love this movie, but I also know it isn’t high art. I am not reading one script, much less two to see what changes they made, but it’s nice that it’s there for bigger fans than me.

Random Thoughts 

I’m ashamed to admit I kind of like that “Friday night’s a great night for football” song. And now that the NFL seems willing to play games any day of the week, they could legitimately use this at some point.

I love Tony Scott, but between this and The Fan, it's clear that he never watched professional sports. The football game here and the baseball game in The Fan are inexplicably dark. Even the announcers in this look like they're calling the game while hiding from a slasher in a closet. And no fucking way would the entire audience be allowed to have open umbrellas. 

Billy Blanks, you don't have to do this! Trust me, you'll have plenty of money in a few years from the Tae Bo videos.

“I think I fucked a squirrel to death and don't even remember it.”

This is my favorite kind of Bruce Willis performance: hungover and chain smoking.

Weird that Noble Willingham played an NFL team owner in this and Ace Ventura. I guess he does give off dickhead team owner vibes.

There is way too much banter going on with Wayans right after his girlfriend was killed in front of him. They tack on a little moment with him crying a single tear about it, but that doesn't excuse the constant joking around. I guess we all grieve in different ways.

He was cheating on her, though, so he wasn't exactly boyfriend of the year.

In less than 36 hours, Willis is at the scene of two car explosions and a massive shootout. At what point do they just lock him up as a precaution?

“Apparently there are too many bullets in this gun,” is a pretty fucking cool thing to say before shooting someone.

I mainly wanted to check this out just to see Willis punch Kim Coates's nose into his brain in 4K.

It's hilarious that Willis continues to chainsmoke even as he's held captive. The bad guys just keep giving him cigarettes.

Man, it seems like these guys get caught by the bad guys ten times. Lucky for them these bad guys have a “take them somewhere else and let them talk a lot of shit before you kill them” policy.

I don’t think free agency is hurting pro football as much as shootings happening two games in a row. But Taylor Negron getting shredded by a chopper, and Bruce Willis dancing brings the crowd back immediately, so it's fine.

Red Flag Down - Fun with Squibs

The slipcover to Red Flag Down, available now on blu-ray, is exactly why I got into reviewing physical media. It looks like some depraved, possibly illegal shit. It’s not, but I always get excited when I come across an oddity like this, especially when it turns out to be a fun little short film. But that cover looks like a screen grab from a poorly shot hostage video. I get a lot of strange movies sent to me, and I only have so many hours to watch all this stuff. But every now and then, a cover like this speaks to me and I have to check it out.

Red Flag Down was a homemade excuse to work with squibs, and it was distributed back in the early ‘90s in video stores. They made a few VHS copies and took them to video stores and hopefully people would check it out. And somehow it ended up on blu-ray. I’m glad it did. 

The plot isn’t all that important, but if you must know it’s about a paintball business courting a reporter, hoping for a good article to drum up business. But it turns out two evil weirdos cosplaying as Blue Velvet characters have turned the paintball guns into real guns…or have they?

As I said, it doesn’t really matter. It’s all very silly and janky, but the squibs look pretty good. Most importantly, you can tell everyone involved had a great time making this. And if that wasn’t clear from the forty-ish minutes of storyline, then the final blooper / behind the scenes / credit sequence should hammer that home. 

That final sequence saved the movie(?) for me. It seemed like a genuinely good time making this. And I’m glad I got a chance to check out this oddity.

Random Thoughts 

After the FBI warning (which I was surprised to see), it asks you to “Keep your VCR running” after the movie for some behind-the-scenes footage.

The filmmakers are fans of Blue Velvet because those dudes at the beginning are giving off strong Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell vibes. And this is confirmed in the liner notes included with the blu-ray, as well, which also points out this is the filmmaking team of Chris Smith, and his father Chuck Smith.

And Chuck Smith is credited as “Dean Palance.” Chris is credited as “Jack Hopper.”

The main theme sounds like Carpenter. I mean, if you're going to be influenced, these are some good'uns.

Those squibs have to be painful. And they probably were, as the liner notes explain they were made with firecrackers.

Correction: according to one of the actors in the bloopers at the end he “didn't feel a thing.”

Correction to the correction: one actress did say it stung when a squib went off.

The back of the case claims the film is “Approx. 60 minutes” in one spot and “1 HR 2 MINS” in a different spot, and the actual running time is 52:39.

I love the PowerPoint-esque transitions between bloopers.

Graduation Day - Tromatic Special Edition

I had high hopes for Graduation Day, available now from MVD. Over the years, I’ve built up my slasher film bona fides, but I still have a ton of blind spots. This offering from Troma looked to be a fun hidden gem. Why else would it be getting this new “Tromatic Special Edition” blu-ray when Vinegar Syndrome had already given it that treatment years ago? It must be crazy.

It’s just okay. 

I assume, due to the multiple releases, that this has a soft spot for those who saw it originally in the ‘80s, but I was expecting a breezier, gorier, and much more fun time for this revenge slasher film. The premise alone is ripe for a good time. A promising track star dies during a race, casting a dark shadow over the program and the entire class. Months later, as graduation day looms, the victim’s sister comes to town to accept an award on her behalf, and people start dying in increasingly inventive and sometimes track-related ways.

It is certainly silly, and it has the hallmarks of a high school film written by someone who is either too far-removed from the experience or never went at all. First off, no one gives a fuck that much about track. Way too much stuff is going on around graduation day, which is usually the sole focus of the school. At one point, a victim is just walking around in full football gear, even though it’s out of season. Stupid shit like that.

But it’s not very fun, even in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way. Worse, it’s just okay. And the kills aren’t very shocking or funny, either. Even the best kill involving a pole vaulter is neutered by just showing the aftermath rather than the kill itself. 

There is a whodunnit aspect that kept me mildly engaged, and the ridiculously shitty step-dad character had a couple insane lines of dialogue. But overall, I can’t imagine I’ll remember anything about this weeks from now. But for old-school fans of the film, this release should please them.

Transfer and Special Features

This looks fine, and is undoubtedly an upgrade from the VHS quality most people probably saw it in originally.

As I mentioned above, this got the Vinegar Syndrome treatment years ago, and all of those special features are ported over. There’s plenty of interviews, and I can’t imagine a fan of the film would want more from this. 

But I’m not exactly sure what warranted this new version. I imagine it must be a rights thing in which they reverted back to Troma or something. And in true Troma fashion, they just released the exact same thing, but with an emphasis on the Troma of it all.

In fact, the only new special features are just Troma oddities that have nothing to do with this film. So if you want to see some extra Troma shit, this is the release for you. But if you already have the Vinegar Syndrome copy, I think you’re good.

Any Given Sunday - Modern Gladiators and Awful DVD Menu Screens

There are a few go-to movies for me when it comes to sports. When baseball season starts, I’ll re-watch Bull Durham or Major League or Cobb. With golf, I go with Tin Cup. With football, it’s Any Given Sunday, Oliver Stone’s frenetic film that both celebrates and condemns the sport. It’s a film that’s messy and unsure of itself, which is perfect for football. 

Any Given Sunday makes it quite clear that pro football players are modern day gladiators. And while gladiators are typically given glorious treatment in history and pop culture, they were basically slaves putting their life on the line to distract the masses. In that way, it’s an apt comparison, though obviously there’s a lot more money and fame involved for modern athletes, and the deaths are far slower. I don’t think it’s an unfair comparison, especially cinematically-speaking. 

Stone, of course, isn’t subtle about any of this; just watch the dinner scene between Pacino and Foxx with the chariot race from Ben-Hur playing in the background and intercut into the scene. That doesn’t make it wrong, but the bluntness of it is distracting at times. Then again, is there a more blunt sport than football?

This is why it actually feels natural for there to be so many scenes of men discussing their legacy and whatnot in relation to a game. It’s silly, but it’s real. These broken men abuse drugs, women, their families, etc. They might be gladiators, but they live like they’re in Caligula. It makes all the talk of the importance of leaving behind a legacy of greatness seem pretty fucking stupid. Sanctioned excess will do that to people, and what organization is more hypocritically perfect for this than the NFL?

The NFL, which unsurprisingly did not participate in the film (the Dolphins are referenced at one point, implying that the fictional league of this film co-exists with the NFL somehow), presents the sport with the same reverence Any Given Sunday does. But they try to bury any negative side effects of the sport like drug abuse and CTE and abhorrent off-field behavior. At least Any Given Sunday presents both sides of the game.

This is all getting appropriately sloppy, and it’s not necessarily by design. And I don’t think Stone was going for some meta-commentary with his sloppy film, either. But when you address both this film and the sport it portrays, it’s impossible to be simple about it. The viewers of both are complicit. I’m okay with Stone’s head-spinning approach because I find it enjoyable, much the same way I’ll still cheer for the horrible Miami Dolphins while also condemning the NFL from time to time. That’s America, and Oliver Stone, for better or worse (especially in the ‘90s) was great at capturing that dichotomy.

One of the worst DVD menu screens of all time.

My basement was the go-to weekend hangout spot in high school and beyond, and I always had a movie on when everyone would fall asleep. This was no big deal until the movie ended and the DVD menu screen came up. Auto-play wasn’t a feature back then (or my DVD player simply didn’t have it), and interactive menu screens were the norm. Any Given Sunday is one my friends and I talk about to this day.

First off, when I watched this on my new 4K player, it only played through twice, and then the movie started. Not sure if this is more modern technology taking over or what, but I could have used it twenty-five years ago. Anyway, as you can hear, that bland ass hard rock music is terrible, but imagine that blaring on a loop at three in the morning.

Some others that came to mind were Fight Club and Super Troopers:

There are plenty of others I’m just not remembering now, but even though these were annoying years ago, they take me back now. Even though I still watch plenty of physical media, the technology has still made this mostly obsolete. First off, I almost always go to sleep with something streaming playing, so the worst case scenario now is an annoying show or movie auto-playing or a series of previews constantly cycling. As for blu-rays and whatnot, even without auto-play, the vast majority of menu screens these days are still images or maybe a little music from the film. They are much more subdued whereas the early 2000s DVDs wanted you to wake the fuck up and watch a movie. 

The modern situation is undoubtedly better. But popping in an old DVD like this and seeing that awful menu screen takes me back to a simpler time. And it also reminds me that this movie needs a 4K upgrade. What the fuck is going on here? 

Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes 

I tried to watch the streaming option on Fandango, but it’s the theatrical cut, which I've never seen, and there were so many little differences it annoyed me. Not to mention the three minutes of commercials every five minutes. 

It's not that the director’s cut is better, it's just what I'm used to. For instance, the DC has Beamen getting yelled at for not being ready whereas in the theatrical cut he just appears next to Pacino, ready to go. I wasn’t committed enough to stick it out the whole movie and look for differences.

The editing of Stone's films of the 90s should be studied in film school. How coherent films, much less good or arguably great ones, are cobbled together from all that footage and different film stock is a miracle to me.

“Cherubini? What'd he fall off the bench? What's next? Stigmata?”

Love that triple take Pacino gives Foxx.

Can't believe I just found out Jim Brown's name in this is Montezuma Monroe. Still not sure if the full name is said on screen, but that's what he's credited as in the credits.

That caricature of Oliver Stone at the bar is fucking diabolical.

“I don't get strokes, motherfucker, I give ‘em!”

I bet Dick Butkus calling Pacino a f****t was a Butkus adlib.

Met-Rx went all in fast on Willie Beamen.

Pacino says he's glad he's old then pays a prostitute with a check. Consistent.

“Fuck you, coach! I ain't buyin' yo brand!”

I see the DP went to the Last Boy Scout school of cinematography for that rainy night game.

Dennis Quaid wearing a chef's hat while grilling hot dogs is fucking hilarious. 

I like what they do with the playoff game having an announcer from each team calling the game, bickering the whole time.

Heston understood the assignment. Show up, bear those bottom teeth, and deliver the hell out of this line: “I honestly believe that woman would eat her young.”

The Weight - Depression. Gold. Baseball?

The Weight, from first time director (but long time editor and producer) Padraic McKinley, is being heralded as a “throwback” movie akin to great thrillers like Sorcerer or Wages of Fear, but beyond the basic premise of moving precious material through a dangerous landscape, that comparison does not hold up. 

First, The Weight isn’t going to be remembered as much as those films, but more importantly, it’s not trying to be those films. It’s less about the perilous journey of Ethan Hawke’s character and more about his willingness to do whatever it takes to gain his freedom. 

The Weight takes place during the heart of the Depression, and it feels like it. Misery pervades the opening of the film as single-father Hawke tries to make ends meet to support his daughter. We first meet them having fun during a feigned car chase (foreshadowing, anyone?). They’re having fun and clearly love each other. But the fun ends quickly as a sequence of events leaves them homeless, and Hawke ends up on a chain-gang. The boss of the chain-gang, Russell Crowe, strikes a deal with Hawke. If he can help a local mine owner steal his own gold before the government seizes it, he can have his freedom. 

Hawke and Crowe work well together, and their scenes are the film’s most memorable. But this is not the two-hander the previews and poster make it seem to be. This is Hawke’s film, and Crowe is a footnote in it. Don’t get me wrong, Hawke is great, as usual. He looks the part, and you truly believe his desperation. But it would have been even better had Crowe been more of a foil to his character. I wanted a scene-chewing villainous turn from Crowe, but instead we get a handful of scenes of him as just being kind of a bad guy. It’s understated, and I simply don’t want that from Crowe these days.

With Crowe out of the film, The Weight is primarily about a group of prisoners moving backpacks of gold through the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. And while it looks beautiful and old-timey (the cinematographer was clearly a fan of the blurred edges of The Assassination of Jesse James), it’s not very thrilling. There is a moment on a rope bridge that is the film’s one moment that attempts to be Sorcerer, but I found it more silly than harrowing. 

Hawke, the visuals, and the stakes of the film just weren’t enough for me to ignore some issues I had with the plot and melodrama. With the melodrama, some moments at the beginning were simply corny in their presentation of the Depression with the little girl deciding to sell her teddy bear. And the moment she’s taken away from Hawke goes on far too long. It’s a necessary scene, but the moment with Hawke in the cell after she is gone is enough to convey what has just happened to him. It’s as if the film doesn’t trust Hawke to portray that emotion, so a soap opera-esque scene plays out first. 

Once I start pulling at threads with The Weight, a lot of it falls apart. The basic premise didn’t work. The mine owner claims he can’t trust any of his own men to take the gold, but then he sends…two of his own men with the crew to make sure they don’t steal it? And the plan is to meet up with the men and load up the gold in a car; so why not just take the gold in a car from the mine in the middle of the night or something? I get that there is no movie without the need to move the gold, but they didn’t put enough thought into why it had to be done this way. I just spent the whole movie waiting for Crowe to show up again.

And that was the biggest issue overall. This could have been an exceptional movie with Hawke and Crowe going head-to-head in the chain gang. Crowe mentions baseball a lot because he fields a team with his inmates. This would have been more interesting if that was the focus of the film and a Longest Yard situation played out with Hawke having to win his freedom on the baseball field. I mean, if we’re going to try to be like a better classic film, why not go with a fun one?

This is a lot of complaining, but only because The Weight had a lot of potential that didn’t pay off. Take all those expectations off of it, and you’re left with a perfectly fine and simple film with plenty of emotion and harrowing moments. Perhaps it's my fault for wanting something else from the film. With this talent, though, I want something special worthy of the big screen. Instead, this is destined to be an “okay” movie people half-watch on streaming while scrolling on their phones, which, I suppose, is a fitting legacy of a film this Depression-coded.

Random Thoughts

Perhaps I’m being too harsh on a film that I didn’t really hate. It’s just that I’m seeing some glowing blurbs and Letterboxd entries for this claiming it’s a modern classic, and it’s just not. I try not to even look at stuff like that before I write a review, but it’s a little overwhelming for this one, and I’m suspecting it’s more about marketing than it is real opinions from real people. I’m not saying people who love this aren’t real. They are, and I’m glad this worked for them so much, but the five star reviews and hyperbolic blurbs are far too numerous for a film that will be forgotten in a month. Or maybe I’m just really missing something with this one.

What was with all that baseball talk, anyway? Why was that a kind of plot point with Crowe sizing up new prisoners for his baseball team? I know he brings it up again later, but I really thought a big baseball game was going to be a plot point, and it wasn’t. 

The rope bridge scene is being hyped by people (and the movie itself since the image of the bridge is being used on some posters), but I just thought it was stupid. Don’t get me wrong, rope bridges are inherently tense, and the idea of walking on a good one makes me nervous (not that I have ever or will ever actually encounter one). But I was expecting a scene of them having to very slowly walk across it with one or two of them falling, but leaving behind their bag of gold that Hawke has to perilously retrieve. Instead, they have to throw each bar one at a time to Hawke in the middle of the bridge who then tosses it to the other side? Could they not have had to the two handler fuckers take a few to lighten the others’ loads and try that first? How did they land on, let’s toss every single bar two times across a bridge? Not to mention, they have been told they will be killed if a single bar is missing. It’s just stupid. 

And once again, why the fuck did they have to do this at all? The mine owner trusted two of his goons enough to escort the gold, but he didn’t trust them enough to just drive away with the gold? And why was the gold safe to transport in a car later on? Maybe I just missed something when the owner was going over why it had to be done this way. Did he say something about the roads being watched day and night? If so, then why weren’t those road agents already taking the gold. What were they waiting for?

I can’t stress enough how much Crowe is wasted in this. He just comes across as sad, not menacing. And he truly disappears for the majority of the film. I wanted the guy from the meme screaming about having a bad day. Instead, I got…I don’t know…Body of Lies Crowe?