Hollywood’s fascination with nice guy brawlers who beat odds, addiction and each other has encompassed almost every permutation of organized fighting. Boxing is the obvious one here but as Darren Aronofsky proved in ’08’s The Wrestler, fake fights can carry the same dramatic tension as real ones. Also, Mickey Rourke’s face. So…where do we look next when Hugh Jackman decides to headline a film about fight robots that he controls with his mind? The answer my friends is Mixed Martial Arts, a many disciplined fight league populated by the best fighters in the world and a lenient approach to rules, regulations and heinous tribal tatts. A legal version of Bloodsport if you’re familiar with Jean Claude Van Damme’s late 80’s work – what we now know as the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Warrior written and directed by Gavin O’Connor tackles this new breed of fighter but does so without shedding the worst tropes of the journeyman genre. The trailer follows a down on his luck teacher (Aussie Joel Edgerton) who resorts to his former life as a fighter to ensure the financial stability of his family (see: Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter or Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler). This is Hollywood’s way of measuring how much you love your daughter by how severely you beat the shit out of someone. At the same time his estranged brother played by Tom Hardy (see: Christian Bale in The Fighter) enlists their alcoholic father (Nick Nolte) to train him for the big fight-off going down in Las Vegas. Pushed by forces outside of their control (and a way too convenient narrative device) both brothers end up competing and before the cheeseball trailer ends we know that both will face each other in the final. Brother vs. Brother. Terrible Tattoo vs. Terrible Tattoo. Cheddar vs. Swiss. Warrior vs. Fighter vs. Wrestler vs. Boxer. Familial Love vs. Familial Hate. EVERYTHING vs. Tom Hardy’s torso. Urgh. File this under: Coulda been a contender.
Watch below…
