An original saga with novelistic roots in Great Depression Americana and classic Westerns, Padraic McKinley’s first feature, The Weight, in theory has a lot going for it — a vivid evocation of the rugged Oregon wilderness in 1933, an atmospheric score, a pair of leads with the requisite gravitas in Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe, playing driven men on different sides of the law. The director also sticks some creditable influences on his mood board, William Friedkin’s Sorcerer being the most obvious of them. Aiming to emulate the introspective action-adventure survival thrillers of the 1970s is no bad place to start. But grit, rawness and dirty-realist poetry can be elusive elements to conjure, even in a production that cultivates those qualities with a rough-and-ready feel for the scrappy, sweaty storytelling of another era. Ironically, despite such juicy elements as gold, greed and survival, The Weight lacks weight. For a high-stakes drama that throws a small band of desperate, downtrodden men into an environment of ruthless thugs and crooks in authority positions, requiring considerable stamina and …