The Weight opens on a sunrise on a fogged-over cornfield in rural Oregon. Maybe it’s the Midwestern DNA in me, but it looks like a piece of paradise: a quiet and honest life free from the hustle and bustle of life. Despite not being very honest and always hustling, this land is also paradise for Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke). That’s because he’s got his car and his young daughter Penny in the backseat. “I’ve never been caught, and they ain’t ever going to catch me!” he exclaims to her, hinting at a past and potentially present life of running from the police. Of course, a main character proudly saying that at the start of the movie will quickly regret it.

With the Great Depression humbling even the most brash people, it doesn’t take long for Murphy to land on the wrong side of the law. A miscommunication over a dilapidated rental property leads him to punch an undercover officer, sentencing him to six months of hard labor as part of a chain gang in the mountains. Even with all the good behavior and favors he acquires, he won’t be released before another family can legally adopt Penny, essentially losing her forever. The lord of this work camp is Clancy (Russell Crowe), who loves nothing more than baseball and circumventing the rules from time to time. Luckily for Murphy, his knack for cars gets him into Clancy’s good graces, who propositions him with a job that will grant him his immediate freedom.

As great as that reward sounds, it comes at a great risk. With Franklin Roosevelt taking the United States economy off the gold standard and enacting a law requiring the reversion of all bank and mining gold back to the federal government, it’s a Wild West scramble for people to get their hands on whatever’s left before it’s too late. Clancy and some of his warden friends have a stash, and they need someone who can transport it unseen through the wilderness. With much more brains than brawn and a no-nonsense attitude to get any job done in order to return to his daughter, Murphy is the perfect man for the task.

When pigeon shooting one afternoon with Clancy, Murphy shoots the bird right away instead of letting it fly away for a few seconds. When asked why he doesn’t allow the bird to have a sporting chance, Murphy says that if the goal is to shoot the bird, then it would be more efficient to do it right away. Director Padraic McKinley (an editor and/or producer on several previous projects for both Hawke and Crowe) takes that direct line of thinking and applies it to the film. Moving at a brisk pace and with a clear sense of perilous stakes, this is a white-knuckle thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. You’ll just want to make sure that seat is in a theater with a decent projector, as the slightly washed-out cinematography can be quite hard to see during nighttime scenes.

Even in the daytime, danger lurks around every corner. That’s because even a little bit of gold can make any desperate person persuade themselves to do something drastic. Also, a part of this mission is a ragtag group of prisoners, each with their own little backstories that get explained one by one. There’s a wisecracking troublemaker, a Scandinavian immigrant who just had one bad day, a philosophical socialist who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a Native American woman using this secret mission to escape her indentured servitude. Their stories are generic, with all the trials and tribulations they face just as predictably timed.

At the center is Hawke, put through the wringer and coming out with a full, forced reminder that he is one of America’s greatest living actors. On top of the weight of gold on his back, he wrestles with the weight of the predicament he’s been placed in, and the choices he will have to make to get to where he needs to be. It’s a muscular performance full of vigor, a reluctant leader of this dirty half-dozen. Crowe also maintains his immense screen presence, even with a limited role. This would have been a much more exciting film had it just been him and Hawke fighting their way through the trees.

It’s a credit to McKinley, as well as the cohort of writers - Matthew Booi, Shelby Gaines, and Matthew Chapman - that they make things simultaneously simple and complicated enough that the prospect of two actors walking in the woods would make for a great movie. By adding a few too many characters into the mix, they’ve diluted the final product. Nevertheless, this is a solid bridge between the thrills of summer blockbuster season and the smaller-scaled nuance of autumn.

Vertical Entertainment will release The Weight in theaters nationwide on September 18th.