Warrior (2011)
Before I get into this movie, I want to say thanks to people who read the first post. Also thanks to the one person who read this in Germany. In one night, Candy and a Movie has gone international!
Time for business. I didn't really get to see a ton of movies from 2011, but of the ones I did, Warrior was my favorite. I figured, why not start off this year with the best from the last. Warrior is the tale of a dysfunctional family of fighters. Kind of like The Fighter. But it's Warrior. Not The Warrior, just Warrior. One of the only things that I had against this movie is the name. It's just kind of meh. It's not like trying to be a warrior is the driving force of the movie. All I'm saying is The Warrior would've been better, it's all in the the. Or This Movie Isn't The Fighter, Come Watch It Too (which I think definitely hurt how the movie did). With a budget around 30 million dollars, this movie only earned about 14 mill. Maybe people saw the fighter and didn't want to watch what they thought would be the same thing. Maybe they didn't hear about the movie. Maybe there is way too much man on that movie poster for them to handle. Who knows.
Like I said before, the movie is about a family of fighters and boy do they not like each other. Nick Nolte (who got the only Oscar nomination for anything in this movie), pretty much played himself, a recovering alcoholic father. The first scene is him coming home to see one of his sons, Tommy (played by Tom Hardy) waiting for him by the front door. Apparently Nolte liked to hit his wife a lot to the point where she and Tommy left him ten years in the past or so. Well now Tommy is back and is bitter to say the least. In fact he is super crabby the entire movie. Eventually we also find out that Tommy used to be a great wrestler and while he is back, he gets his dad to train him for the gigantic MMA tournament that takes place.
Movie then jumps over to the other side of the story and son #2 Brendan. Ooooo I just remembered. Tom Hardy is a British guy and the guy who plays Brendan (Joel Edgerton) is from Australia. Both their characters grew up in Philly. I thought this was America, they took our jobs, ect. Ok, Brendan is a high school teacher and is married with two daughters. Times are tough and they are getting close to losing their house. At night Brendan fights in some small time matches to make a little extra money. His wife gets really whiny about that but once he gets suspended for showing up to teach with a post-fight, Mickey Rourke looking beat up face the principal suspends him and fighting is the only thing they have left possibly save the house. The principal is the sort of comic relief for the movie and is the same guy who played the dad from transformers series. He literally plays the same character too.
So now Tommy is training with Nolte and Brendan with his old coach for the same tournament. The biggest tournament in the world. That only the best 16 fighters make and the winner gets 5 million $. And who would've known, they both somehow make it. With the both of them either never fighting professionally or fighting way in the past and not being very good, they make it. Now is time for a little reader interaction. What happens in every sports movie during training/practice sequences. Take your time although it should be pretty easy. The answer is of course a montage. We're gunna need a montage! Hopefully if you didn't come up with the answer, you were smart enough to cheat and just look down a line. I need to come up with a better system for that. The best part of this little montage is Brendan's coach getting so mad during their running sessions in the field that he throws his phone after hanging it up. I think that in the Iphone age, people aren't throwing phones anymore. Did any ever do that? Maybe a controller during a video game session (control yourself nerd!) will get tossed and sometimes a remote will fall off a bed into a slurpee cup (true story), but I don't know about throwing phones. I missed about 5 minutes of the movie zoning out about this.
Next is the tournament and I think I'll leave off here. You still need something to watch for yourself so I'm not spoiling anything.
SIKE SPOILER SECTION DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU HAVE WATCHED THE MOVIE, UNLESS YOU DONT WANT TO WATCH. THEN IT'S OK.
The following will just be random thoughts about the tourney, followed by some in depth, real talk, movie facts.
First off, how jacked is Tom Hardy. This is the same guy who was calling other men darling in Inception. I love how he also busts out of the Octogon (fighting area) after knocking the other dudes out. It was also pointed out to me that Kurt Angle plays the big Russian fighter. He is big in size but what I really meant by big Russian fighter is that the guy is really, really Russian. Like still rocking soviet gear Russian. For someone as American as Kurt, it took quite the acting job to walk around like that. I guess he couldn't pull off the accent in the end though because I'm pretty sure that he had zero lines.
Time to crack an egg of knowledge all over you. One of the cooler parts going into the last showdown is that you want both to win and neither to lose. That makes it hard to rchoose who to root form, at least for me. Which is why the movie chose for you. What you say? I am an individual and make my own choices. Calm down dude all I am saying is that with simple use of color, they turned Tommy into the bad guy and Brendan into our hero. The second I saw that, I already knew who would win. I still found myself rooting for Tommy because he was just wrecking guys but alas. Anyway, color. If you notice Tommy comes out in black and Brendan in white. The hero always, always, always is in white and the villain in black. It sounded stupid and simple to me the first time I heard this, but it's totally true. Subliminally in your mind, you see the white and it symbolizes purity and that other good stuff and bam, that's your guy. Hollywood owns your brain.
END OF SPOILER SECTION. MOVE ALONG.
Time for some features. I'm trying to think of some cool, unique things to do so this section will be under construction for the first wave of movies.
Favorite Scene : The beach scene. It's really the only time the brothers talk while not fighting (with their hands)and the acting is nuts.
Favorite Quotes : Not a ton in Warrior. Tommy says some harsh stuff to his dad that is said well I suppose. There is this too “I remember him, too. I remember him being very unmemorable.”
Rating : I still don't know what to do here. Should I get really corny and give movies candy corn? Should I stick with the usual stars or thumbs up? Who knows, maybe something will come to me. For now, 8 candy corns out of 10
What to take away from Warrior : Mostly the acting. It was great. I loved everyone except for the wife. This is just a personal opinion, but I think usually the best scenes from themed movies (like sports movies, zombie movies, ect.) shouldn't have to do with those themes. Like if the best part of a sports movie is that sport, then I should just watch the real stuff right? The rest of the movie will probably be a drag, or at least not up to par with the games. Then you end up just sitting there, waiting for the next game to happen and everything in between will feel like a waste of time. There are always exceptions though. Sometimes the zombies also used to be nazis. Then the zombies become super cool enough to drive the film. Also a basketball movie could take place in Indiana where life is so boring between games that you are dying for the next one. This movie fits into what I like with both being good, but the story outside the ring drives it for sure. The beach scene and the Nolte/Captain Ahab scenes were great. The fights themselves were a little unrealistic. There are still coaches yelling at the fighters to do things like “turn your hips in, up and in” as well as “submit the Russian (which sounds like a dirty page on urban dictionary)” and the refs wear those cool bowties but fighters are also being tossed around and knocked out in only Hollywood style. So guys who just want to see technical fighting, just watch the real thing. Finally how good is Tommy acting in the last fight. Looked super real. The National song at the end there fit perfectly too.
Well there is one in the internet books. First is the hardest maybe? 8 candy corns.
First off, I'd like to apologize for not being from another exotic country such as Britain or France. Great write up though, definitely going to watch it soon. And watch out for those slurpee cups lol.
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