Outside of a powerful and intense performance from Tom Hardy, Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior promises a lot early but is quite muted along the way to an ending I got very little out of. I was never quite sure what the payoff was supposed to be, but as far as I can tell there is no happy ending and there is no sad ending, in fact, there is hardly an ending to speak of. Walking away from the theater I was left wishing the overlong 139 minute feature had found a way to scratch 30 minutes from its run time or at least give me something to care about as the credits rolled.
The story centers on two brothers, separated due to family troubles when they were teens. Tommy (Tom Hardy), a one-time promising young wrestler, went with his mother when she left their alcoholic, abusive and “Moby-Dick”-obsessed father (Nick Nolte). The other, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), stayed behind for the love of a girl (Jennifer Morrison). Tommy had to watch his mother pass away in pain, enlisted in the Marines and is now back in Pittsburgh. Although still unwilling to forgive his father, he shows up on his doorstep insisting he train him once again, just as he did in his wrestling days.
Over in Philadelphia is Brendan, a one-time professional UFC fighter, who is now retired, married with two kids and teaching physics at the local high school. His relationship with his father is a bit different, always feeling second best to Tommy, even after Tommy left. Now, times are tight and for extra money he’s been partaking in small local mixed martial arts (MMA) fights for extra cash, telling his wife he got a job as a bouncer. Trouble is, once the school finds out what he’s been doing he’s suspended without pay. Hard to pay a mortgage and take care of a family with no income.
As fate would have it, the two estranged brothers are on a collision course as they both enter Sparta, a brand new MMA tournament awarding $5 million to the winner. Brendan’s reasons for entering are obvious, but Tommy’s are a bit more clandestine and I won’t spoil that emotional arc here.
As down on the film as I may sound in my opening paragraph it’s not a complete loss. Nick Nolte as the boys’ 1,000-day sober father, Paddy Conlon, gives a solid performance, but I grew tiresome of his character, and when it came time for his big moment I wasn’t buying it as much as I felt I was meant to.
The performance of the film, for me was the intensity brought by Hardy. He’s a beast in the ring and the first time you see him fight you will believe he could and would destroy anyone in his path. He’s a dark and brooding mystery, but at the core you see a young boy that simply wants to be loved. For such a contradiction to exist in such a quiet, beast of a man is a credit to Hardy, but then again I’ve been on the Tom Hardy bandwagon for a few years now.
Opposite Hardy, Edgerton creates a character you believe and feel for considering the trouble he faces as the film echoes society’s current struggle to stay financially afloat. As for his fighting physique, he’s sporting a bulked up frame, but not to the point he looks like the Incredible Hulk in teacher’s khakis.
Even O’Connor’s direction works, with a particular affinity for filming some excellent fight sequences, but problems arise when the film overstays its welcome, particularly in the middle-third. An abundance of exposition wore me down to a nub, wishing something of consequence would happen. The story has a hard time keeping its pulse up as O’Connor is prone to taking too many breaks in the action or lingering too long on one idea. It’s also troubling when your best fight scene happens only a few minutes into the film.
The tournament at the film’s climax is exciting enough to watch, but Tommy’s brutal introduction makes you want to simply rewind it and watch that one scene over and over again. Not to forget, the way the film ultimately wraps itself up left me bewildered and unsatisfied.
O’Connor has waded in sporting waters before, directing the story of the gold medal American hockey team in Miracle, a film I enjoyed the first time I watched it but have had a hard time getting into since, much for the same reasons I found this film problematic. What’s frustrating is Warrior isn’t overly expository, so pointing out the specific moments that could be excised is difficult. Yet, how O’Connor managed to finagle 139 minutes out of this story is beyond me. I enjoyed the film, but believe it could have been tightened up into a much better and emotionally thrilling feature.
