It’s cliché in 2011 to reference Rocky when talking about a movie that centers around fighting. But you’d have to go all the way back to that 1976 Oscar winning film to find a movie about guys pummeling each other that had just as solid a back story, brilliant acting and as much emotional impact as Warrior.
Though it got little notice, aside from some solid critical praise when it hit theaters earlier this year, the film is just a phenomenal example of why indies will almost always succeed over big budget movies (if not financially than creatively) because the focus is simply on telling a great story.
Warrior follows estranged brothers Tommy (Tom Hardy) a former Marine clearly hiding something about his time in Iraq, and his older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a former mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter now scraping by as a high school physics teacher and family man about to lose his house to foreclosure. Nick Nolte has a small, but stellar role as their alcoholic father. Both end up fighting in a MMA tournament in Atlantic City for $5 million in prize money.
The movie is powerfully moving from start to finish and deserves a much larger audience than came out to see if in theaters.
Warrior/140 Mins./Lionsgate/2011
