What elevates the material further is the intensity of Hawke’s characterisation and the quiet maturity that the 55-year-old brings to the role.

This is the sort of lean actioner that Walter Hill or Robert Aldrich might have made in decades past, and Hawke and Crowe — birds of a feather, you might say — would have fitted into their world perfectly.

If you miss the days of no-nonsense westerns, Padraic McKinley’s first feature The Weight scratches that itch as well as anything in a while.

[Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe's] cordiality with which they treat each other at first is charged with threatening sparks as we await the conclusion, when they will meet again. [Full review in Spanish]