The Weight

At the opening of the trailer for 1930s thriller The Weight, we see the beginnings of a backroom deal between Murphy (Ethan Hawke), a prisoner trying to get back to his daughter, and Clancy (Russell Crowe), a prison warden looking to recruit gold smugglers.

At 0:10 we see a shot of a work camp, with prisoners swinging pickaxes. The sound of the pickaxe strikes are coordinated into a steady groove that continues through the next 20 seconds of montage. What began as a diegetic sound that our characters on screen can hear (i.e. at 0:12 we see and hear a pickaxe striking rock, we can hear its impact, and so can the characters), subtly transitions in a rhythmic element of the score (by 0:15 we’re seeing Murphy’s daughter riding in the back of a car, but we’re hearing the pickaxes in rhythm as though we’re still at the work camp). A clever way to build rhythmic momentum using sounds from the story’s environment.

While the pickaxe groove ticks along (of course this pickaxe groove is reminiscent of the ticking clock trope we’ve been commenting on in film trailers for the past nine years), the visuals show us the work camp context for the start of this adventure, and through the voiceover we hear the deal being struck between Murphy and Clancy. The music cuts to silence at 0:30 to leave space for Clancy to make his offer: smuggle the gold, and walk free.

The next chapter of this trailer (0:35-0:53) has many overlapping layers of electric guitars (including a tip of the hat to blues slide guitar sensibilities of Sinners, also set in the 1930s) plus a clock sound that is now ticking four times as fast as the pickaxe groove from earlier. In this sequence, Murphy and his team are driven to a mine, given packs full of gold, and sent off on their mission. This musical section pauses at 0:56 to show Murphy breaking through a rope bridge and nearly plunging to his death.

The trailer really takes off at 1:00 when the crew sets off into the forests. Here the music is mostly a pulsing bass rhythm accompanied by snare drum along with menacing BRAAAM sounds. There are some nice moments of music synched with visuals here, including at 1:00 when five adjectives from positive film reviews in block capitals appear on screen to the beat of the music. Then there are the gunshots at 1:22, also sequenced to be a 4-beat count-off in time with the music.

Up to here the music in this trailer has been instrumentally minimalist, focusing on percussion, bass, guitars and some synths. But at 1:54 they bring in a repeating figure on upper strings, a quick violin gesture that gives the feeling of racing. There’s a descending motif in the midrange strings here as well, and this sudden orchestral heft serves to heighten the intensity of the trailer’s closing act, which gives us a barrage of short clips of the near-death encounters our protagonists will face.

It’s a strong trailer, creative, clear, and captivating. Besides the obvious comparison to period pieces like record-breaking Sinners, The Weight’s story also feels similar in aesthetic to Clint Bentley’s superb 2025 period drama Train Dreams. The pickaxe groove was the highlight for me.

The Weight drops in theatres September 18.

— Jack Hui Litster