Warrior

Here is a movie that not only pays tribute to sports movie cliches, but elevates them to a higher level. Warrior, which is being marketed as a Mixed Martial Arts drama, is really about the pains of family and personal disappointment, than it is about the pains the fighters encounter inside the caged arena where they fight. This is nothing new, but director and co-writer Gavin O'Connor puts so much passion and feeling into his broken down characters, we not only feel for them, but feel like we're right there with them the entire time. This is a beautiful movie, with some of the best stand-out performances of the year so far.

Two of these performances belong to rising star Tom Hardy, and veteran Nick Nolte. They play an estranged father and son who are forced to come back together. The son, Tom (Hardy) is a Marine who has returned home to train for the upcoming Sparta tournament, a huge event in the world of the MMA world, with a $5 million cash prize. Tom is a broken down man with little left, but a reason to fight, and a need for the money, which we learn in bits and pieces as his past is revealed. He knows the only person who can train him is his father, Paddy (Nolte), who he has not seen or spoken to in years. Their first meeting (a powerful sequence that opens the film) is awkward, raw, and emotional all at once. Paddy is a recovering alcoholic with 1,000 days of sobriety under his belt. He's not sure if Tom is able to forgive his past actions that tore their family apart, but he is just happy to be back in his son's life. The volatile and fragile relationship between the two makes up part of the film's heart, and is aided by both of their masterful performances when they're together, and apart. Nolte, in particular, is better than he has been in years, and deserves award consideration.

Paddy has another estranged son, we quickly learn, who is not so eager to forgive, but is also considering entering the Sparta tournament for reasons of his own. This is Brendan (Joel Edgerton), who left the family when he couldn't tolerate his father's drinking anymore, married his sweetheart Tess (Jennifer Morrison), and is now the father of two young daughters. He was a professional fighter in the past, and is now a physics teacher at a local high school. With various medical bills piling up (one of his daughters needed a heart operation), and the bank threatening to foreclose his home, Brendan sees no other choice but to step back into small local arena fights for money. His secret is soon discovered by Tess, and by the school board, who suspends him without pay for his secret life as an amateur cage fighter. He needs the prize money from the professional tournament in order to hold onto his home, and turns to an old trainer friend named Frank (Frank Grillo) to get him back into shape.

We know from the beginning that Warrior will ultimately come to a fateful match where both brothers will have to face off against each other in the tournament, and that in itself is kind of rare. Here are two very well-rounded and established characters that we have come to like, and have their own needs to better their lives with the money at stake. We would like to see both of them win, but ultimately, we know that can't happen. One of them will have to have their dreams shattered. In the process, their long-standing family demons will be exposed, and they will have a chance at redemption. It comes to be more about money, and certainly more than the underdog knocking out the cocky champ. Both are underdogs, and both are characters we have grown attached to, so O'Connor gives us no easy answers at the end. I haven't been this moved by a movie about professional fighters since Million Dollar Baby.

I also enjoyed the film's dark look and tone. Since this is a movie about shattered people who are all at the end of their ropes in one way or another, it fits that the movie is shot mostly with dark colors, and a somewhat somber mood. While the fighting sequences are certainly energetic and brightly lit, it is the human drama scenes that actually wind up hitting hardest. The performances are what carry the movie, and everybody is more than up to task. While I singled out Hardy and Nolte's turns earlier, Joel Edgerton should not be ignored. He just doesn't get a chance to stand out quite as much as the other two leads. He does get a very good confrontation scene with Nolte outside his house, but none of his other scenes quite pack the same weight. He's still very good throughout.

Warrior surprised me in a lot of ways. I expected a standard "stand up and cheer" sport story, and got a very human and bitter drama about fathers and sons instead. I also expected to learn more about the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, and while the fight scenes are executed well, we don't really learn much about the actual sport itself. Fortunately, this is a drama first, and a sport movie second, so it evens out. This is one movie that deserves to find a wide audience.

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