Warrior (2011)/Review

Release Date: 9 September 2011 (USA) Runtime: 140 min

Genres: Action | Drama | Sport

Official Sites: http://www.warriorfilm.com/

Taglines: Family is worth fighting for

Director:  Gavin O'Connor

Writers:   Gavin O'Connor | Anthony Tambakis

CASTS

Joel Edgerton | Tom Hardy  | Nick Nolte |Jennifer Morrison | Frank Grillo | Kevin Dunn | Maximiliano | Hernández | Bryan Callen | Sam Sheridan  | Fernando Chien  | Jake McLaughlin | Vanessa Martinez |

Denzel Whitaker | Carlos Miranda |Nick Lehane

Filming Locations: Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA

Budget: $30,000,000 (estimated)

Production Co: Mimran Schur Pictures | Lionsgate, Solaris 

SUMMARY

Two brothers face the fight of a lifetime - and the wreckage of their broken family - within the brutal, high-stakes world of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighting in Lionsgate's action/drama, WARRIOR. An ex-Marine haunted by a tragic past, Tommy Riordan returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh and enlists his father, a recovered alcoholic and his former coach, to train him for an MMA tournament awarding the biggest purse in the history of the sport. As Tommy blazes a violent path towards the title prize, his brother, Brendan, a former MMA fighter unable to make ends meet as a public school teacher, returns to the amateur ring to provide for his family. Even though years have passed, recriminations and past betrayals keep Brendan bitterly estranged from both Tommy and his father. But when Brendan's unlikely rise as an underdog sets him on a collision course with Tommy, the two brothers must finally confront the forces that tore them apart, all the while waging the most intense, winner-takes-all battle of their lives.

 REVIEW

The picture flirts with contrivance and cliché (it at times feels like a smoothie composed of the best bits and pieces of the Rocky pictures and The Fighter), but comes out the other side due to a refusal to pander or insult our intelligence.  There are no 'big speeches' and plenty is left unsaid.  I appreciated the fact that we never get any details about just what horrors Paddy committed against his family back in the day, only offhand implications.  I appreciated that the film takes it for granted that Brendan loves his wife and his children and doesn't feel the need to add gratuitous displays of 'emotion' (i.e. no overacted playtime with kids, no flashes to happy moments during a climactic moment of struggle, etc).  And, without going into details, I love that the film doesn't resolve its deep family hurts by the end of the picture, but rather puts its characters in a place where at least some of these characters have a chance to repair the long term damage if they so choose.

Warrior is, above all, an emotionally engaging and uncommonly thoughtful family drama.  It rises above most in its genre by refusing to pit 'good' against 'evil' and by refusing to pander to our lowest emotional denominator.  It features moments of genuine insight and recognizable human interaction that feel so 'right' that you almost want to cheer.  Like the best of its genre, it is less about who wins or loses as opposed to who is in your corner when the game ends.  It does have several crowd-pleasing moments, and few of them are the sort that you'd expect in this genre.  It features wonderful performances across the board, and I could easily see this film's cast dominating the year-end awards race if the film hits it big at the box office.  Aside from too much 'on the nose' play-by-play announcing during and between the fight scenes, the film has dialogue that rivals anything you're likely to hear this year in terms of authenticity.  Warrior is a wonderful movie and a pretty great film.