Warrior A-

Rated PG-13, In theatres, 140 minutes

Miracle’s Gavin O’Connor directs this film about two estranged brothers and their dad destined to meet in the finals of a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) tournament without tricks or subtleties, but it’s the stronger film for it. Like Miracle, if you saw the trailer, you know the story, but you don’t know that O’Connor, who also co-wrote, is using the set-up to explore the emasculation of men by the financial crisis and what it means to be a man in 21st Century America. Along the way we get a stellar performance out of Nick Nolte as a recovering alcoholic father as well as perfectly shot fight scenes that neither exaggerate nor downplay the brutality of MMA.

The basics: Nick Nolte plays Paddy Conlon, wrestling trainer, three years sober, and apparently an abusive father and husband. His youngest son Tommy (Tom Hardy, Inception), a wrestling prodigy, left in his early teens with his mother. Mom died, and Tommy is finally returning home after a stint in Iraq. Older son Brendon (Joel Edgerton, Animal Kingdom), stuck around to be with his girlfriend, now wife, Tess (Jennifer Morrison). After some years in the UFC, he’s settled in to teaching, but his youngest daughter got sick and he’s caught between hospital bills and a house that’s lost half its value in the crash. He takes to fighting to pay some bills, his school gets wind of it, and now he’s suspended without pay. Brendon returns to serious fighting against his wife’s wishes to stave off foreclosure. Meanwhile, Tommy, who is RIPPED btw, gets back into fighting to keep a promise made to a dying comrade to take care of his wife and kid. Tommy comes back to have dad train him, but he can’t come close to forgiving his father for the past. In fact, both sons heap so scorn and abuse on their father until your heart breaks a bit for him even though you know he probably has it coming.

The bonus: O’Connor approaches his material like nothing so much as a Greek tragedy. The GreekProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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understood what anyone with Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits already knows: Sometimes you’ve got to fight to be a man. He plays with the two main male archetypes: warrior and the father/husband protector. Both his protagonists feel like they’ve failed in those roles and are looking for redemption in the most male of all pursuits: hand-to-hand combat. Into this crucible O’Connor dumps the pain of brothers separated and a father’s attempt to make up for that which cannot be replaced. Unlike last year’s otherwise superior The Fighter, Warrior never forgets exactly which story it’s telling—the reunification of the brothers and father. The other subplots are perfectly handled to drive the primary narrative and are balanced to propel not take away from it. Whereas The Fighter never has that one emotionally climactic payoff you expect from a sports movie, Warrior knocks it out of the park. All the leads and supporting cast are good, and Nolte is exceptional, potentially lining himself up for a Best Supporting nomination come award season.

O’Connor here produces, for my money, a better sports film than Miracle, no small feat. His last film, the ambitious but flawed Pride and Glory, signaled he was interested in more than straight studio pics, and he comes through here admirably. Like a poor man’s Michael Mann, he is interested in the world of men and the struggles to be masculine in our current context. There is a scene between the brothers on a beach as they address the issues dividing them that, if it had been better, might have propelled this to a full A from me. O’Connor is still wrestling with the medium, but he’s got things to say, and he’s smart enough to appeal to the average dude while he’s saying them.

Much better than I expected going in. A-