Warrior | Film review

In a setup so fake it makes professional wrestling look credible, Warrior contrives to have two estranged brothers from the ’Burgh face off in a mixed-martial-arts championship. Both men struggle with dark pasts, particularly the shadow of an alcoholic father (Nick Nolte) who first taught them the art of the choke hold. Did we mention that Tommy (Tom Hardy) is a marine who saved lives in Iraq, ripping a door off a tank in a rescue, and is trying to support his war buddy’s widow? And that Brendan (Joel Edgerton) is a physics teacher who needs the prize money to pay the mortgage or else lose his home? Please, just make up, call it a fucking draw, split the cash and grab some brews.

While this is a bout that could only be jerry-rigged in Hollywood, the surprise of Warrior is how tightly it grips the viewer in these clichés. Tap out or walk out. The film gains from a rich, almost fragrant sense of its gym-rat milieu. Good actors, especially The Square’s Edgerton (whose Brandon gets the bulk of the movie’s sympathy), also help, but thespians couldn’t save director Gavin O’Connor’s inept cop drama Pride and Glory. No, what gives Warrior its charge is the gusto with which its bulked-up stars—abetted by four editors—convincingly lunge into the world of mixed-martial arts, a sport for which I did not so much care at the outset. The sight of two scene-stealers whaling on each other as if trying to tenderize intransigent chunks of meat hits on something primal that no amount of manufactured drama could suffocate.