Review: Warrior (2011, O'Connor)
September 5th 2011 21:19
Warrior (2011, O’Connor)
Written September 5, 2011
Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior hits all the notes you expect it to. Going in, you know essentially the type of film you’re getting in terms of structure and tone. However, you may slightly mislead by Lionsgate’s marketing. The trailers have indicated a central storyline of brother against brother. This is not entirely the case. In fact, the brothers in the film: Tommy Reardon (Tom Hardy) and Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton) have only one scene together prior to their ultimate fight, which is laid out before us heavily in trailers and therefore it is no surprise that they will be going up against one another in the climax. Instead, the real source of conflict is the boys’ relationship with their estranged, abusive drunk of a father.
The film opens to an establishment of Paddy Conlon’s (Nick Nolte’s) personality as we watch him leave church, drive home to an audiobook of Moby Dick and encounter the son he hasn’t seen in years sitting on his doorstep. When we discover it’s actually been fourteen years since they’ve seen one another we wonder if that scene should have been a bit more overplayed.
Tommy learns his dad is now sober and likes to throw out casual digs of him being a wife abuser, still full of anger and hostility after leaving with his mother years ago to escape his father’s violence.
Meanwhile, Brendan is also estranged from his father. A former MMA fighter, he’s now married with children, working as a high school teacher and in danger of foreclosing on house. Both men have something to prove, something to fight for when they ultimately join the same MMA tournament which garners the largest payout in the history of the sport.
The film is a myriad of cliché’s and predictable scenes. It’s decent; average. The sad part is it could have been so much better if the pacing and structure had been altered. The end of the first act and large part of the second act drags as the film tries to find it’s pacing, never quite capturing it. The conflict between the brothers doesn’t come into play until so late in the game that it’s hard to understand why the moment in which they fight should seem so significant. As stated previously, the real conflict here is between father and son – and this is hashed out over a number of scenes, some of which are far too repetitive. People talk to one another but they don’t seem to be speaking; the dialogue not as intense and believable as it should be. Tommy and his father essentially don’t get anywhere – failing to make progress it seems they should by the end. The film doesn’t utilize its dialogue to the full depth it could have.
Tommy, meanwhile, isn’t given much to say in general. This is unfortunate as he’s easily the most interesting character in the film. Stylistically, O’Connor makes an incredibly poor choice during a training montage by using multiple split-screens to reveal the action. The entire sequence is awkward, amateurish and takes away from the action occurring onscreen.
The film also suffers from too many subplots and weak structure. At one point, we’re taken to Iraq out of nowhere. The scene is so jarring it feels as though we could’ve been watching a different film. The same occurs when cut to El Paso, Texas. Tommy’s backstory is thrust upon us in a way that doesn’t feel natural and instead, feels like they couldn’t come up with anything else. This could have been easily improved by either starting the film with a flashback or starting the entire film years earlier as a whole. So much of the dialogue dwells on the past rather than the present and thus it’s odd that we started 14 years after the fact. Personally, and others may certainly differ, the storyline and its given structure isn’t strong enough to achieve the level of connection and caring that was needed.
In all honesty, if Tommy’s past had been different – say if he’d gone to prison or the like – and there was more of a source of conflict between he and Brendan rather than he and Paddy, the film could have benefited greatly and would have easily been more consistent.
The fighting scenes are easily the best parts of the film and the third act, while still problematic at times, is the strongest of the three. There are, overall, some head-scratching moments: such as everyone still universally behind Tommy after a certain revelation occurs, how Brendan locates Tommy in what was such an obvious scene centered around the set piece, and how the principal is aware of Brendan’s late-night fighting habits.
This being said, there is some decent content here in sections. Hardy and Edgerton are very charismatic (although Edgerton’s character has a bit too much of ‘woe is me, the world is on my shoulders’’ going for him) and definitely would have benefited for being onscreen together more. Nolte has a difficult job and goes somewhat over the top towards the end in what is mostly an understated performance. The problem is there’s no reason for the audience to sympathize with him. As said previously, Hardy isn’t given much to say but his presence is undeniable and he makes you want to learn more about his character. It’s a shame that parts of his far too limited dialogue is so difficult to make out. One of the film’s minor standouts is Frank Grillo, who is magnetic as Brendan’s trainer; a wonderful casting job there. The film is bookended by two songs from the band The National and their style fits perfectly with the onscreen content. The climatic scene is elevated to new heights simply because of the choice of music.
Warrior is, oddly enough, a rather wholesome film, despite the violent sport it’s depicting. The film contains a handful of curses and when the first one comes more than halfway through the film its jarring to actively realize the lack of cursing until that point.
It doesn’t end perfectly for all involved and in that regard, it is admirable. Warrior is a unique film in that it’s one of the few to showcase mixed-martial arts in cinema the way boxing has been portrayed for years. There's a slew of fighting films that are coming out lately, but at least this one's sport is different. Upon seeing it, you may long for the ways Warrior could have been better but ultimately you won’t leave feeling as though you wasted your time and money.
Written September 5, 2011
Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior hits all the notes you expect it to. Going in, you know essentially the type of film you’re getting in terms of structure and tone. However, you may slightly mislead by Lionsgate’s marketing. The trailers have indicated a central storyline of brother against brother. This is not entirely the case. In fact, the brothers in the film: Tommy Reardon (Tom Hardy) and Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton) have only one scene together prior to their ultimate fight, which is laid out before us heavily in trailers and therefore it is no surprise that they will be going up against one another in the climax. Instead, the real source of conflict is the boys’ relationship with their estranged, abusive drunk of a father.
The film opens to an establishment of Paddy Conlon’s (Nick Nolte’s) personality as we watch him leave church, drive home to an audiobook of Moby Dick and encounter the son he hasn’t seen in years sitting on his doorstep. When we discover it’s actually been fourteen years since they’ve seen one another we wonder if that scene should have been a bit more overplayed.
Tommy learns his dad is now sober and likes to throw out casual digs of him being a wife abuser, still full of anger and hostility after leaving with his mother years ago to escape his father’s violence.
Meanwhile, Brendan is also estranged from his father. A former MMA fighter, he’s now married with children, working as a high school teacher and in danger of foreclosing on house. Both men have something to prove, something to fight for when they ultimately join the same MMA tournament which garners the largest payout in the history of the sport.
The film is a myriad of cliché’s and predictable scenes. It’s decent; average. The sad part is it could have been so much better if the pacing and structure had been altered. The end of the first act and large part of the second act drags as the film tries to find it’s pacing, never quite capturing it. The conflict between the brothers doesn’t come into play until so late in the game that it’s hard to understand why the moment in which they fight should seem so significant. As stated previously, the real conflict here is between father and son – and this is hashed out over a number of scenes, some of which are far too repetitive. People talk to one another but they don’t seem to be speaking; the dialogue not as intense and believable as it should be. Tommy and his father essentially don’t get anywhere – failing to make progress it seems they should by the end. The film doesn’t utilize its dialogue to the full depth it could have.
Tommy, meanwhile, isn’t given much to say in general. This is unfortunate as he’s easily the most interesting character in the film. Stylistically, O’Connor makes an incredibly poor choice during a training montage by using multiple split-screens to reveal the action. The entire sequence is awkward, amateurish and takes away from the action occurring onscreen.
The film also suffers from too many subplots and weak structure. At one point, we’re taken to Iraq out of nowhere. The scene is so jarring it feels as though we could’ve been watching a different film. The same occurs when cut to El Paso, Texas. Tommy’s backstory is thrust upon us in a way that doesn’t feel natural and instead, feels like they couldn’t come up with anything else. This could have been easily improved by either starting the film with a flashback or starting the entire film years earlier as a whole. So much of the dialogue dwells on the past rather than the present and thus it’s odd that we started 14 years after the fact. Personally, and others may certainly differ, the storyline and its given structure isn’t strong enough to achieve the level of connection and caring that was needed.
In all honesty, if Tommy’s past had been different – say if he’d gone to prison or the like – and there was more of a source of conflict between he and Brendan rather than he and Paddy, the film could have benefited greatly and would have easily been more consistent.
The fighting scenes are easily the best parts of the film and the third act, while still problematic at times, is the strongest of the three. There are, overall, some head-scratching moments: such as everyone still universally behind Tommy after a certain revelation occurs, how Brendan locates Tommy in what was such an obvious scene centered around the set piece, and how the principal is aware of Brendan’s late-night fighting habits.
This being said, there is some decent content here in sections. Hardy and Edgerton are very charismatic (although Edgerton’s character has a bit too much of ‘woe is me, the world is on my shoulders’’ going for him) and definitely would have benefited for being onscreen together more. Nolte has a difficult job and goes somewhat over the top towards the end in what is mostly an understated performance. The problem is there’s no reason for the audience to sympathize with him. As said previously, Hardy isn’t given much to say but his presence is undeniable and he makes you want to learn more about his character. It’s a shame that parts of his far too limited dialogue is so difficult to make out. One of the film’s minor standouts is Frank Grillo, who is magnetic as Brendan’s trainer; a wonderful casting job there. The film is bookended by two songs from the band The National and their style fits perfectly with the onscreen content. The climatic scene is elevated to new heights simply because of the choice of music.
Warrior is, oddly enough, a rather wholesome film, despite the violent sport it’s depicting. The film contains a handful of curses and when the first one comes more than halfway through the film its jarring to actively realize the lack of cursing until that point.
It doesn’t end perfectly for all involved and in that regard, it is admirable. Warrior is a unique film in that it’s one of the few to showcase mixed-martial arts in cinema the way boxing has been portrayed for years. There's a slew of fighting films that are coming out lately, but at least this one's sport is different. Upon seeing it, you may long for the ways Warrior could have been better but ultimately you won’t leave feeling as though you wasted your time and money.
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