Review: Warrior (2011)

By: Aaron Jankowski

Two brothers torn apart by an alcoholic father have a chance to put the past behind them and reunite their broken family, but at what cost?

Warrior, directed and written by Gavin O’Connor, is an emotional tale about the Conlon family. The Conlon’s are a family of fighters, lead by their father, Paddy, played wonderfully by Nick Nolte (Oscar nominated for Best supporting Actor) who is a former boxer and is recently sober after his drinking cost him his wife and two sons. His eldest son, Brendan (Joel Edgerton) was a UFC fighter but is now married with two children and teaches physics at a local high school. This brings us to the youngest Conlon, Tommy (Tom Hardy). A lot of the story revolves around Tommy’s mysterious history and military past.

Tommy, seemingly for no reason, decides to join a MMA tournament called Sparta, which is a grand prix set up to determine the toughest man on Earth. Despite his seeming hatred for his father, Tommy enlists Paddy as his trainer for the tournament. Brendan, not knowing is brother has also joined, also enlists in the tournament, despite his wife’s wishes. Brendan’s motives to fight are obvious, his family is facing foreclosure on their home and he refuses to let his family take a step backwards.

The story is not ground breaking in any way shape or form. Both men are underdogs in their own right, and the constant reminder of this by the tournaments broadcast announcers grows tiresome. Nothing makes a cliché (which could normally be ignored or forgiven) more annoying than constantly harking on it.

Much like the story, O’Connor’s dialogue is simple and holds no surprises. This is the unfortunate trap of a lot of sports movies. His film does a lot of telling and not a lot of showing, as we are told background info on characters via news casts and home video rather than learning it through character interactions.

It seems as if O’Connor wasn’t sure how to transcend from training to the fighting, so what we end up getting is a very awkwardly styled training montage. Yes, I know, you are all probably so shocked to hear that in a sports movie there is a training montage. It is unavoidable, but could have been done much better than it was.

Unlike similar scenes in films like Rocky, Warrior’s training shots were void of emotion. I place a lot of the fault on the shoulders of a poorly plotted score. The use of songs by The National are perfect to accent the melancholy in the films deep emotional scenes, however the score fails to help build momentum and lift the spirits during the happy, or intense moments. So what we end up having is a film that’s emotional landscape has extremely low lows, but whose high’s plateau extremely early.

Hardy, Edgerton and Nolte are great carrying the movie on their collective shoulders. Jennifer Morrison is also good as Brendan’s wife in the few scenes she has. Though, Nolte steals the show. It is no wonder he was given a nomination for his performance.

Warrior’s build to its climax is slow, and has no sense of urgency. Even if one hasn’t seen the trailer for the film, it is obvious that the Conlon brothers are going to face each other in the final match of the tournament, which takes all sense of urgency and importance out of every match leading up to the finale.

Once again, this is where the films lack of ability to evoke any emotion other than sadness and pity. You want to get amped up for each fight but it just doesn’t happen. The fights are beautifully choreographed, but that is not enough. I was more emotionally invested in watching the giant robots throw down on each other in Real Steel.

When the final bout does come, it even fails to deliver and felt rushed. Though enough cannot be said about how well Edgerton, Nolte and Hardy handled themselves in this subpar venture.

My sentiment about Warrior can be summed up in a quote one of the announcers says as Brendan enters the ring, “I remember him ... I remember him being very unmemorable.”

SCORE: 6/10

ACTING: 8/10

EFFECTS/VISUAL: 7/10

WRITING: 6/10

DIRECTING: 7/10

OVERALL: 34/50

TAKE AWAY THOUGHT: Full disclosure, I know nothing about MMA and am not even really a big fan. But I am a lover of sports movies and am usually able to get embarrassingly lost in the emotions of the game, fight or race, but I was just unable to get involved with this film. I am also a sucker for movies involving father issues, but again, O’Connor failed to grab me. I suggest you go and watch The Wrestler instead.