Warrior

3.5/4

Starring: Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison, Frank Grillo

Rated PG-13 for Sequences of Intense Mixed Martial Arts Fighting, Some Language and Thematic Material

It’s so nice to see a movie that rejects the obsession with wowing viewers with visual magic in an attempt to reach every market and instead actually tries to engage its viewers on an emotional level.  Not everyone responds to every type of character or situation, so big budget movies these days are limiting on plot and character and emphasize the visual aspect to attract foreign viewers.  While it may bring them everyone into the theater, it leaves everyone with an equal impression: meh.  Not so with Gavin O’Connor’s “Warrior,” which despite the plot, concentrates far more on character interaction than fighting.  For those who are looking for action, there is some, and it’s well worth the wait to see because unlike in most action movies, we have a stake in the outcome.

Brendan Conlon (Edgerton) is desperate.  A well liked physics teacher, Brendan is in danger of losing his house where he lives with his wife, Tess (Morrison) and his two daughters.  In a desperate attempt to pay the bills, he returns to his old profession as a MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighter, winning bouts at local strip clubs for quick cash.  But when the school finds out about it, he is suspended without pay.  All out of options, he turns to an old friend, Frank Campana (Grillo) in order to train for Sparta, the biggest MMA competition with a $5 million, winner-take-all pot.  Also fighting for the money is his estranged brother, Tommy Riordan (Hardy), who wants the money to send to his dead Marine friend’s family.  To train, Tommy has turned to the one person who threw their lives in disarray in the first place: their father, Paddy (Nolte).  Paddy is a recovering alcoholic, whose struggles with the disease caused Tommy and his mother to flee out of state (Brendan stayed to be near his girlfriend, whom he later married).  These three lives are slowly moving to a crossroads at the big tournament.

While this may seem like a clichéd and artificial conflict, it is not.  Gavin O’Connor, who co-wrote the script with Anthony Tambakis and Cliff Dorfman, develops the conflict in a natural way.  In fact, the issue of them squaring off in the final round doesn’t come into play until the film’s final scenes (the people who made the trailer probably included that as a hook to draw people into the theater, but it’s an unnecessary spoiler).  O’Connor is more interested in exploring these three damaged individuals, all of whom capture our sympathy.

The performances by the three leads are tremendous.  None of the characters are particularly original, but they are well-acted and well-written.  Joel Edgerton, whose only previous credits that I have seen (other than “Legends of the Guardians,” but he was just a voice then) was the utterly awful thriller “The Square” and the not-much-better “Animal Kingdom,” is excellent as Brendan.  Brendan is a guy we’d all like to meet: nice, charming and charismatic, but he’s forced between a rock and a hard place, and he’s going to fight to get out doing the only thing he can.  His conflicts with his wife about his fights are natural and understandable; credit must go to Edgerton and Morrison for accomplishing this.  As Tommy, Hardy gives another terrific performance as Tommy, the aloof and self-contained younger brother.  Tommy is fiercely independent, but his attempts to bottle up his emotions are about to cause him to explode.  Despite recruiting Paddy as his trainer, he refuses to have any sort of “make up” with him.  Much of the reason why this conflict is heartbreaking is because Nolte is so good.  Paddy knows that he was a horrible father, and permanently damaged the lives of both of his sons and his wife (who died before the film begins).  Paddy desperately wants to become the father he has never been, but neither of his sons are having any of it.

Ironically, the material that gives the film most of its punch is also the most frustrating.  The subplot with Paddy and his sons feels underdeveloped and half-finished.  We hear them talking about how horrible it was growing up with him, and while the actors are good enough to convince us, we never understand how truly bad it was.  My (unsubstantiated) theory that the studio forced O’Connor to cut a lot of these scenes in order to cut down on the running time (which is 2:15 as it is, but it doesn’t feel like it).  As a result, there are numerous loose ends at the end, and Tommy’s story feels shortchanged at the expense of Brendan’s.  I would love to see the Director’s Cut.  That might push up the rating to a perfect four out of four.  The film certainly has that potential.