movie review
Warrior
Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte and Joel Edgerton work through family disharmony
The name Warrior is kind of a misnomer, because you go into this movie expecting buff gladiators wielding swords against the enemy. It definitely has the buff guys, but they’re estranged brothers battling it out in a mixed martial arts ring.
When I first heard about this movie, I was excited at the prospect of seeing Nick Nolte on the big screen again. He’s had a few roles in recent years, but mostly voice parts, like Bernie the Gorilla in Zookeeper and Mulgarath in The Spiderwick Chronicles.
In Warrior, he really gets a chance to shine and remind us what a great actor he is, maybe because his role as a recovering alcoholic mirrors his own real-life struggles. Nolte has seven film projects in the next few years, so I hope Warrior signals his big comeback.
In fact, I see “Oscar” written all over his role of Paddy Conlon, the alcoholic father of two sons who are estranged from both him and each other. The youngest son, Tommy, is played by Tom Hardy, who has the soulful tough-guy role down pat. We learn that Tommy was a soldier in Iraq who went AWOL after saving other soldiers from certain death. A former high school wrestling prodigy, he shows up at Paddy’s door asking if his father would train him for Sparta, a high-profile mixed martial arts competition with a $5 million purse.
We also learn that Tommy moved away with his mother after she left the abusive Paddy years earlier. His older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) stayed behind, but eventually, he too became estranged from his father. Brendan married Tess (Jennifer Morrison) and started a family, but now they’re in danger of losing their home, even though they work several jobs between them, including Brendan’s gig as a high school physics teacher.
One night, former fighter Brendan goes back into the ring to earn some extra cash and ends up getting suspended for the rest of the semester. That’s when he decides to return to the ring full-time, a decision that ultimately brings him and Tommy together in the final fight at Sparta.
People will probably be comparing Warrior to last year’s The Fighter, and there are some similarities – family drama, down-on-their-luck fighters, struggles with alcohol/drugs, and brutal fight scenes where you can almost feel bones cracking.
While watching Warrior, I kept thinking of that line “you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” No matter what you do or where you go in life, you’ll forever be connected to your family, whether it’s emotionally, physically or spiritually. Sometimes you have to work through a lot of issues to get to a point where you can stand to be in the same room with each other.
Warrior doesn’t end with a family dinner and everyone vowing to work it out in therapy, but you get the feeling they’re taking a step in the right direction. It’s one of those movies where I’d really like to know what happens after the end credits roll, and I guess that’s the sign of a great film that’s sure to score a few nominations during next year’s awards season.
While rated PG-13, Warrior is best for kids 14 and older because of the brutal fight scenes and intense family drama. And it really is all about family, in more ways than one. In addition to the estrangement between the three main characters, we also see just how far Brendan is willing to go to ensure that his wife and kids have a home. It’s a story that will ring true to many families across the country during these tough economic times.
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