Warrior (2011)
Isaac, Esau and Muscles
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: September 8, 2011
At one point in “Warrior” we see Brendan Conlon, a high school science teacher, laying down the law — the law of physics that is — for his students. “Force equals mass times acceleration,” he writes on the board. That formula might be of use in thinking this new film from Gavin O’Connor, which grasps the Newtonian principles at the heart of pugilistic melodrama.
“Warrior” takes place in the world of mixed martial arts, and it is appropriately blunt, powerful and relentless, a study of male bodies in sweaty motion and masculine emotions in teary turmoil.
But like the brutal, brawling sport that provides Mr. O’Connor with a backdrop, a storehouse of metaphors and a pretext for staging some viscerally effective fight scenes, “Warrior” possesses surprising poetry and finesse. Which is not to say that it is subtle. The director’s impressive technique — and all the grace and discipline of his excellent, hard-working cast — is mustered with a single, unambiguous goal in mind. This movie wants to knock you out. It will.
Brendan (Josh Edgerton) is a dedicated educator and a devoted family man. His students adore him, and so does his wife, Tess (Jennifer Morrison). But Brendan’s roots and his future are entangled in more violent pursuits. He used to be something of a big deal on the mixed martial arts circuit, and now, to make some extra money — and perhaps also to find an outlet for the rage that simmers behind his kindly eyes and gentle grin — he fights for cash in parking lots. As hard as they work, Brendan and Tess have trouble staying afloat. They are, indeed, under water, carrying debt on their modest house in Philadelphia that is much larger than its post-real-estate-bubble value. And one of their children requires expensive medical care.
Meanwhile Tommy (Tom Hardy), Brendan’s estranged younger brother, returns to the modest house in Pittsburgh where they grew up. Years before, Tommy and their mother (whose maiden name he has adopted) fled the boys’ abusive, alcoholic father, Paddy, a wrestling coach played with growling, broken-down grandeur by Nick Nolte. Tommy, a former Marine who served in Iraq, is not looking for reconciliation. He’s looking for a fight, and without forgiving his sobered-up, apologetic dad, he engages the old man’s professional services as he prepares to go into the ring.
Unbeknownst to each other, both Tommy and Brendan — who is coached by an old friend (Frank Grillo) — are training for Sparta, a $5 million, winner-take-all tournament. Every sports movie needs a Big Game, and in Mr. O’Connor’s hands Sparta becomes a frenzied, fleshy opera: a grand, grunting, assaultive spectacle of redemption and revenge.
Tommy’s style of fighting recalls that of the young, unbeatable Mike Tyson. He attacks with a combination of speed and strength that turns an opponent’s bravado into fear in a matter of seconds. Brendan relies more on technical finesse and a capacity to withstand punishment. Mr. Hardy and Mr. Edgerton — an Englishman and an Australian playing a pair of Irish-American he-men — are physically potent actors, but the key to the movie’s effectiveness lies in their ability to convey fragility. These are tough guys, but you can only care about them if you believe that they can break.
At the basic level of plot, what will happen at Sparta is never really in doubt. Though there are other imposing fighters in the Spartan ranks — including a fearsome Russian who recalls (though he does not physically resemble) Dolph Lundgren in “Rocky IV” — it is obvious that the bad brotherly blood between Tommy and Brendan can be expiated only one way, in a final showdown.
Mr. O’Connor, who wrote the “Warrior” screenplay with Anthony Tambakis and Cliff Dorfman, knows perfectly well that surprise is not the essence of sports-movie suspense. A few years back he directed “Miracle,” a rousing reconstruction of one of the most celebrated athletic moments in recent history, the 1980 victory of the underdog United States Olympic ice hockey team over its fearsome Soviet rival. It’s not as if knowing the outcome of the real story diminishes that movie’s impact. On the contrary, the sense of inevitability and improbability makes its triumphant finish all the more cathartic.
The engine of inevitability in “Warrior” is not history but fate. Paddy’s constant companion in his lonely, sober old age is an audio-book version of “Moby-****.” That novel’s theme of monomaniacal, violent obsession and the Shakespearean cadences of its prose underline what is happening on screen in a way that is only occasionally heavy-handed. (And in any case a good fight picture, like a good fighter, can benefit from a heavy hand.) Brendan, Tommy and Paddy uphold traditional family values — the tradition, that is, of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, King Lear and the fallen houses of ancient Greek tragedy.
But if there is something primal and archaic in Mr. O’Connor’s fable of fathers and sons, he nonetheless grounds it in the painful realities of contemporary America. With arresting honesty and enormous compassion — but without making a big topical deal out of it — “Warrior” looks at an American working class reeling from the one-two punch of war and recession. Tommy and Brendan are too proud for self-pity, which makes the evident pain of their circumstances all the more affecting.
They fight because every other way of being a man has been compromised, undermined or taken away. Patriarchal authority, as represented by Paddy, is cruel and unbending until it turns sentimental and pathetic. The roads to an honorable life promised by work and military service are mined and muddied by the greed and mendacity of the institutions — government, schools, banks — that are supposed to uphold integrity.
In such conditions stripping down to your shorts and beating another guy senseless can seem not only logical, but also noble. The mock-gladiatorial theatrics of mixed martial arts may look tawdry and overblown, but the sport, perhaps even more than boxing, expresses a deep and authentic impulse to find meaning through the infliction and acceptance of pain. While the Conlon brothers are both fighting for the money, the real stakes are much deeper. Though their climactic confrontation is terrifyingly violent, it is also tender. And the most disarming thing about “Warrior” is that, for all its mayhem, it is a movie about love.
“Warrior” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). A lot of fighting.
WARRIOR
Opens on Friday nationwide.
Directed by Gavin O’Connor; written by Mr. O’Connor, Anthony Tambakis and Cliff Dorfman, based on a story by Mr. O’Connor and Mr. Dorfman; director of photography, Masanobu Takayanagi; edited by John Gilroy, Sean Albertson, Matt Chessé and Aaron Marshall; music by Mark Isham; production design by Dan Leigh; costumes by Abigail Murray; produced by Gavin O’Connor and Greg O’Connor; released by Lionsgate. Running time: 2 hours 19 minutes.
WITH: Joel Edgerton (Brendan), Tom Hardy (Tommy), Jennifer Morrison (Tess), Frank Grillo (Frank Campana) and Nick Nolte (Paddy).
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