I like to think I keep up with theatrical releases fairly well. Most of my reviews are intended to help people decide which film they are going to spend their hard-earned $10 on. Every once and a while, however, I miss a very good film that is released theatrically and don't get a chance to see it until it comes out on DVD. This year that film is "Warrior," which can be found at any of the Redboxes in Muncie for a mere $1.28. Trust me; that will be money well spent for this film.
"Warrior" tells the tale of two brothers, Brendan and Tommy Conlon, who participate in a mixed martial arts tournament with the largest prize money the sport has ever offered.
Brendan (Joel Edgertan) is a physics teacher who moonlights as a fighter in order to pay the bills. In this context he is our Rocky: a loveable loser who is fighting in order to hold his family together. Brendan enters the tournament to prevent the bank from taking his house, as he refuses to accept bankruptcy as an option.
Tommy (Tom Hardy), on the other hand, is a much more polarizing figure. An ex-marine who is haunted by his mysterious past, Tommy sulks through every shot, refusing even to play music as he steps into the ring to fight his next opponent. The fights are one clear conflict in the film; the brothers represent another conflict.
Further complicating matters is the brothers' father Paddy (Nick Nolte), whom Tommy recruits as a coach but to whom Brendan will no longer speak. Paddy is a recovering alcoholic whose past has destroyed his relationship with his sons. Through training Tommy he hopes to redeem himself, though Tommy's sullen attitude makes the task harder.
When I saw the first trailer for "Warrior," I was victimized by a poor advertising campaign. The initial advertisements made me think this was merely a movie capitalizing on the recent rise in popularity in MMA, recycling the scripts from "The Wrestler" and "The Fighter" into one to suit their own sport.
There are, of course, inevitable similarities between those two movies and "Warrior," but make no mistake about it, this is a film that tells a compelling narrative in a very sophisticated manner.
This is first accomplished through its characters, each of which is interesting in their own right. Brendan is the good brother, giving us the most explicitly obvious reasons to pull for him, but he remains dynamic nonetheless. Brendan has some serious issues with connecting to the rest of his family, and as these become more apparent, it becomes harder to accept him as the pure underdog.
This becomes even more interesting with Tommy constantly vying for our attention. Hardy infuses Tommy with just the right amount of edge, giving us a hardened character who we keep reaching out to connect to, but he keeps us firmly at arm's length.
The same goes for Nolte in his performance as Paddy. He does a great job of conveying the regret and emotional agony his character experiences. Nolte received a "Best Supporting Actor" nomination for his role, and it was certainly deserved, as his performance defines the underlying conflict of the film.
I think the actual fighting scenes in "Warrior" are very well choreographed. The space of the fight is very well-defined, the action is intense and real; if MMA actually looked like this, I might be more interested in it. The fights do make a lot of use of the "shaky cam," so if this technique bothers you, than the fights may be difficult to watch, but overall they are very engaging.
There are, of course, clich+â-¬s that plague nearly all sports movies, but "Warrior" is not nearly as schmaltzy as its trailers would suggest. The story is so well told that it covers up any of the clich+â-¬s the movie offers. This is also one of the rare fight movies that has us side with both fighters; we want to see both Brendan and Tommy win, which makes the tournament all the more suspenseful and intriguing.
"Warrior" follows in the same vein of recent sports films that are character studies, but it does just enough to create a unique story that has you pulling for all of its characters. It's a shame someone has to lose.
Warrior receives a 7.5/10
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