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Friday, September 9, 2011
MOVIE REVIEW
Warrior
Main Event: Brothers In Arms And Fists For Family Title
Nick Nolte as Paddy and Joel Edgerton (foreground) as Brendan in Gavin
O'Connor's drama "Warrior".
Lionsgate
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Friday,
September 9, 2011
Muscular slabs of gladiatorial
human meat slap, kick, punch, lock and grapple in Gavin O'Connor's rousing drama
"Warrior", an overlong, amped-up spectacle specifically geared to crowd please
and evoke the successful "Rocky" films of the 1970s and 80s, with mixed
martial arts instead of boxing. Mr. O'Connor co-writes the film about
a family of men estranged, looking to redeem themselves or their loved ones.
Two brothers barely talk to each other about their departed mother, and neither
cares a lick for their alcoholic father Paddy (Nick Nolte), whom they blame for
their dysfunction. Tom (Tom Hardy) is a disillusioned U.S. soldier back
from a tour of duty overseas who apparently has PTSD and wants to fight it out
of his system in a mixed martial arts tournament. Brendan (Joel
Edgerton) moonlights as a MMA fighter to supplement his school
teacher job and keep his wife and child secure as their home is threatened for
foreclosure. Tom beats the living daylights out of a seasoned fighter, and
his predictable rise begins. Brendan arrives to class with bruises and
welts. His eight-graders think it's oh-so-cool. Go, Teacher!
Beat his behind. Can you give us an A, Teech -- an A for Ass-Kicking?
Occasionally gripping, mostly scattershot and always predictable, "Warrior"
knows a collision course between its protagonists is coming, as do we. The
movie's posters have advertised it for at least two months. "Warrior"
showcases a fighting spirit as American as apple pie, and Mr. Hardy ("Bronson",
"Inception")
and Mr. Edgerton ("The
Square",
"Animal Kingdom") celebrate it well. One
brother is an eruptive, locomotive force, the other a charismatic, compassionate
heart. Mr. O'Connor's camera bobs and weaves, floating like a butterfly to
build tension, a fighter waiting to be unleashed. You know the rah-rah
atmosphere lies ahead and that the blows will hit hard, long before they land.
Aside from Mr. Nolte's aching, palpable, Oscar-nominee worthy work as a Burgess
Meredith-like fight trainer looking to fit back in to a fractured family, the
surface level "Warrior" lacks strength as a drama and is heavily clichéd.
Brendan's wife strenuously objects to the vanity-wrecking her husband gets but
you know that once Brendan ascends the ranks and upsets big-name fighters she'll
be there in his Rocky corner just like Adrian was.
With: Jennifer Morrison, Frank Grillo, Kevin Dunn, Maximilliano Hernández,
Denzel Whitaker, Vanessa Martinez, Nick Lehane, Kurt Angle.
"Warrior" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture
Association Of America for sequences of intense mixed martial arts fighting,
some language and thematic material. The film's running time is two
hours and 22 minutes.
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