War­rior

War­rior is a rugged round­house kick of a film soaked in blood, sweat and broth­er­ly spite. It’s Fre­do and Michael Corleone’s sib­ling squab­ble reimag­ined through a chest-drum­ming Rocky-esque rags-to-ritch­es set up. It’s pre­dictable, unashamed­ly gushy and utter­ly irresistible.

Tom Hardy, greased up like a rotis­serie Chip­pen­dale and with shoul­ders you could land light air­craft on, is sol­id-as-fuck cage­fight­er Tom­my Con­lon. A for­mer UFC child prodi­gy with a snarl that could cur­dle diesel, Tom­my turns up on his estranged father’s (Nick Nolte) doorstep in wrong-side-of-the-tracks Pitts­burgh after turn­ing his pre­pos­ter­ous­ly con­toured back on his mil­i­tary service.

Putting his deep-root­ed bit­ter­ness aside, Tom­my and his crest­fall­en pa resume the gru­elling train­ing régime that brought them suc­cess years before. Mean­while high school teacher Bren­dan (Joel Edger­ton, giv­en his Hol­ly­wood shot after impress­ing in ace Mel­bourne crime dra­ma Ani­mal King­dom), faced with the threat of hav­ing his fam­i­ly home repos­sessed, calls upon an old friend to help get him back in shape.

Their forked path is about to realign. A local sports enter­tain­ment entre­pre­neur has organ­ised a win­ner-takes-all mixed mar­tial arts tour­na­ment in Atlantic City, and both men have the unprece­dent­ed purse set firm­ly in their sights.

Despite the dra­mat­ic weight pro­vid­ed by Hardy, Edger­ton and notably a poet­i­cal­ly sullen Nolte, direc­tor Gavin O’Connor stream­lines the domes­tic trau­ma aspect of the nar­ra­tive, choos­ing instead to indulge in extend­ed mon­tage sequences and teeth-grind­ing­ly real­is­tic fight scenes. But he’s not guilty of wast­ing the act­ing tal­ent at his disposal.

Rather, in obscur­ing the full pic­ture and keep­ing these dam­aged men at arm’s length, he grants the audi­ence auton­o­my over which (if any) of the char­ac­ters are deserv­ing of emo­tion­al invest­ment. We’re left root­ing for no one in par­tic­u­lar, trans­fixed and total­ly exposed to the sen­ti­men­tal suck­er­punch on which the film’s cli­max hinges.

David O Russell’s use of in-ring tele­vi­sion cam­era style footage in like­mind­ed under­dog bruis­er The Fight­er was inspired, but there’s no such nuance here. O’Connor’s film is all about the show, the thrill of the fight, the orches­tral, fist-pump­ing glam­our of plant­i­ng your opponent’s face on the mat and mak­ing him tap. It’s shot accord­ing­ly, with rapid cuts and wince-induc­ing close ups utilised to the max. Yet while its excess is its great­est strength, War­rior ends on a life-affirm­ing note.

As Tom­my and Bren­dan exit the stage on which they meet as foe and kin, weary and ten­der like pum­melled cuts of sir­loin, they enter anoth­er, metaphor­i­cal cage. One they must tack­le glove-in-glove, not toe-to-toe.