Warrior Review: The Best MMA Movie Ever, But Don't Let That Scare You Away
My first real exposure to Warrior was Randall’s version of the Warrior trailer, which is still pretty brilliant. Another fun mash-up came to my buddy and I after we saw the screening and agreed that it was a good movie. Eventually, we started to talk about how similar Warrior must be to Real Steel. Hugh Jackman is an alcoholic father of two brother robots. One was a robot war hero and the other is a robot physics teacher. It’s some powerful stuff. Anyway…
The movie is a bit long, clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes, but there’s not really any fat to trim. It goes without saying that Warrior is the best modern mixed martial arts movie ever made. There’s not really any competition, but even if there was, this is a damn good MMA movie. More than anything though, this is kind of an epic family drama. If you’re not an MMA fan, don’t worry.
If this weren’t a sports movie, the subject matter would be total Oscar-bait. There’s a broken family with an alcoholic father. Estranged brothers dealing with the anger of their childhood. The movie deals with soldiers returning from war and the awful things that happen when they’re stuck in Hell. There’s a mother and father with three jobs between them (one of them is high school teacher) trying to raise two daughters and keep their house in a terrible economy. See? Look at all that heart-tugging and important subject matter. If MMA wasn’t involved you might wonder what independent theater this is playing in.
(Needed to fit this in somewhere: Tom Hardy went beastmode for this movie. His shoulders connect directly to his ears. He’s a complete monster and I just don’t see how he doesn’t kill Batman in Dark Knight Rises.)
Different paths lead both brothers to training MMA at the same time in different cities. Yes, there is a montage. How do two brothers get into the same super tournament? Well, they might seem like a stretch, but it’s believable if you think about how some guys get to their big opportunities in MMA. The sport really is about opportunities taken and missed. Guys really do get a chance on a bigger stage because of YouTube videos and injuries to people they train with.
It’s insane how the grand prix tournament reflects the current Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix that has dragged out over the last year. There are unknown guys and guys with a past.
The MMA scenes are realistic. Some of the throws and slams are exaggerated, but for the most part, the violence looks very real and the MMA scenes are true to what you see in any major promotion. To have that many insane finishes in one tournament is rare, but nobody wants to see a bunch of decision victories in real life or the movies.
The tournament includes UFC fighter Anthony Johnson and former UFC title contender Nate Marquardt. Kurt Angle plays the Fedor Emelianenko-inspired “Koba.” The announcers sound like the UFC’s Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg, but a little less annoying. Warrior takes time to get the MMA details right to go along with all the emotional family stuff. If they had half-assed either the MMA or the real life parts of the movie, it wouldn’t have worked.
Luckily Gavin O’Connor made both sides of the movie work. In the end, he made the first good MMA film, but more importantly, a good movie overall.