tom hardy, summed up in a single image.
the critical sphere was awash with comparisons between david o. russell’s the fighter and gavin o’connor’s warrior as soon as the latter hit screens late last year, and indeed, both are bruising fighter films strewn over cores of discordant, brooding familial ties. yet while there’s enough likeness to invite correlations, where they differ most is within the chronology of their layers: the fighter was hefty family drama masquerading under the rousing spur of underdog sports cliché, whereas warrior seems to flip the formula in the opposite direction.
warrior wants to be a stirring, against-the-odds sports movie above anything else, and seemingly employs the volatile family backdrop — two estranged brothers and their penitent father — for the purpose of humanizing its tropes. unlike micky ward, fictional brothers tommy and brendan conlon aren’t real guys, and thus, warrior was always in need of enough emotional staying-power to vindicate the jaded paradigms and stretched coincidence of its design. it proves to be easy work with performers like hardy, edgerton and nolte, and by the time the details of the familial breakdown do spill out, the importance of particulars is lost in the pure, unbridled ferocity pulsing through each man — you’ll just wanna see the two collide as soon as possible.
you’re kinda supposed to root for brendan (edgerton), the underdog family-man/school-teacher, taking hits in the cage to save his family home (don’t extend too much sympathy — he is clearly living beyond his means) — but the more compelling character is his rampant brother tommy (hardy), as complex as he is athletically credible. amidst a shy compassion and wounded rage, there’s a barrier of obdurate pride to tommy that can only be stripped away in a scrap, and following the reveal of some concealed motivations, the final clash could easily swing either way. cue a pensive the national track and the mounting emotional tension spouts an undeniably-moving, brilliantly-acted slice of sports-film catharsis — like a rear naked choke to the heart you just can’t slip out of.
but as much an exercise of validating clichés is warrior an effort to legitimize the arena it depicts, pulling onscreen mixed martial arts from back alleys and parking lots and transplanting it to the status of a certifiable american sporting pastime. a brief spectator montage in the film’s later moments is enough to clarify intent, as women, school kids and white middle-aged faculty members get behind their boy in the octagon across multiple platforms. yet warrior shows no signs of stripping the sport of its barbaric foundations, but rather endorsing it, and o’connor expertly mines the brutality, technicality and sheer stakes of the sport for visceral thrills and suitably splashy pathos. never back down suddenly feels like forever ago.
trailer here.
