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It’s completely understandable if you have preconceived ideas about this film (in a not good way). But it’s best to put them aside. The poster, undeniably fetishising the bodies of the two leads, doesn’t exactly help. The mixed martial arts in this film is incidental. It is not a film about mixed martial arts. (Or rather, I should say, Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC.) Instead it offers a very moving story of a family torn apart, with the conduit of that story being men fighting in cages.
Following active duty in Iraq , Tommy Conlon (Tom Hardy) returns to Pittsburgh
Hardy’s tortured loner with his monosyllables and wounded animal persona certainly offers more danger and mystique than Edgerton’s Mr Straight but it is Edgerton who is the revelation. As well as impressing with the physical stuff, the guy can really act. That is not to say Tom “So-Hot-Right-Now” Hardy can’t. But, in their scenes together, he does get somewhat KO’d by veteran Nick Nolte. As the pained father offering too little too late, in Nolte we see the pinnacle of a lifetime spent in movies - he just gets better and better. I am being slightly unfair to Hardy, considering he has more acting ability in a single nostril than the likes of an entire Chuck Norris; whereas Hardy really brings it when it comes to the scraps.
Even if you have no interest in UFC the fight scenes are impressively raw and realistic. Director Gavin O’Connor strikes just the right balance between Hollywood gloss and indie grit to make the whole thing work – inside and outside the cage. It is a surprisingly thoughtful tale of a family, the abuse that family sustained and the resulting baggage; all set against an undeniably-thrilling mixed martial arts backdrop.
That poster interests me, not in a gay way, I'm just really interested in looking at its composition.
ReplyDeleteJust saw Warrior last night and I loved it. Well, I loved it apart from the fight scenes, such a shame as everything else about the film was superb. But those fight scenes: badly shot, terribly edited. If you have the camera so close like that how can you see what is actually happening? I swear I heard several punches during close ups shot when there was no way they were moving their arms to hit each other. Cut to a wide shot from the crowd POV sure, but not to a view blocked by a punter so you can't see the two fighters. And cutting away to crowd reaction shots before a blow is landed means you don't see the punch at all, what is the point of that? Several times I had no idea which fighter was which BECAUSE THEY HADN'T SHOT IT CLEARLY. This is not good film making. Another thing which annoyed me was the constant commentators at the fights, seemingly put on there to lead the viewer through the emotions, rather than letting the actors do that. Apart from that, yeah it was great.
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