Gavin O’Connor’s (Miracle, Pride and Glory) stirring new drama Warrior is an underdog tale set in the nascent sport of Mixed Martial Arts fighting. In its relatively short life, MMA has yet to inspire much quality cinema of note. It now has its Rocky.
Warrior’s twist on the traditional underdog formula is to provide us with dual protagonists: the fightin’ Conlon brothers, Brendan (Joel Edgerton) and Tommy (Tom Hardy). Neither have spoken to each other since the dissolution of the parents’ marriage fourteen years earlier. Both of late have fallen on hard times. Tommy is an Iraq war veteran who has turned to pills and booze since returning from abroad; Brendan is a high school science teacher and devoted family man victimized by the financial crisis. Circumstances compel them both to seek salvation in the fight game.
Conveniently enough, the opportunity of a lifetime arrives in the form of Sparta, a brand-new, winner-take-all MMA tournament that awards its champion a cool $5 million – more than enough for Brendan to save his house from foreclosure, or for Tommy to make good on his pledge to provide for the family of a friend killed in Iraq. By this point, we know for certain that fate has determined Brendan and Tommy will meet in the final, and we know for certain how utterly ridiculous this scenario is. And yet we accept it, because by this point, Warrior already has us in its corner.
The origins of the brothers’ enmity are ultimately traced to their father, Paddy (Nick Nolte), a monstrous alcoholic whose abusiveness led their mother and Tommy to flee fourteen years prior. Brendan stayed behind, and Tommy never forgave him for it. When we see Paddy, he’s broken-down husk of a man, God-fearing and 1000 days sober, his face creased with shame and regret. Neither son can stand the sight of their old man, but Tommy, in need of someone to train him for the tournament, reluctantly enlists his father’s help. Paddy, eyeing a last chance at redemption, enthusiastically complies.
Cue the training montage. A fighter rising from obscurity to the upper echelons in his sport within a matter of weeks is hard to swallow; when two fighters do it, it’s a borderline insult to the sport. MMA aficionados might blanch at watching Tommy and Brendan gain one unlikely win after another; more likely they’ll be too absorbed by the action to care. It helps that Hardy and Edgerton both look the part, and are both skilled enough at their craft to lend the film’s many brutal fight scenes a distinct realism. It helps even more that the story, and the actors' stellar performances, have us firmly aligned with their goals.
O’Conner, a veteran of the genre, deploys the underdog tropes at his disposal freely but assiduously, crafting a tale that is unabashedly far-fetched but grounded in characters who are intensely appealing, and who feel authentic. The storytelling is clumsy at times – that Nolte’s character listens to a book-on-tape of Moby Dick throughout the film feels particularly heavy-handed – butWarrior wisely steers clear of bombastic speeches or cloying sentiment.
Warrior’s climactic final fight, in which the estranged brothers at last meet in the ring, is both gut- and heart-wrenching. When the film’s suitably happy ending does eventually arrive, the film gives way ever-so-briefly to hokeyness. But after what these kids have gone through, you can forgive them for getting a little emotional.
Warrior (2011)
- Release Date: 09/09/2011
- Rating: PG13
- Runtime: 2 hr 19 mins
- Genre: Action, Drama
- Director: Gavin O'Connor
- Cast: Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Jennifer Morrison, Frank Grillo
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