Warrior

Warrior a cliched, but well acted film is the first decent thing MMA has given society today.  MMA sounds good when someone talks about it.  However when watching a fight, its shirtless guys grabbing each other on the floor.  Not enough punching or kicking,  the way two real men fight.  The film is directed by Gavin O'Conner (miracle).  It stars Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, and Nick Nolte.

The film is about two bothers who had rough childhood with their abusive alcoholic father.  Grown up Tommy after leaving the military wants to get into MMA and has is father be his trainer.  The other brother, Brendan, his family has fallen on hard times.  He has do MMA on the side which gets him in trouble with his school which he is teaching at.  The two brothers enter a tournament to get five million dollars.  Tommy feels that his older brother and his mom for his father and for a woman.  Tommy hatred for him makes it even more epic when the two bothers have to fight each other at the end of the tournament.

The film has problems, the cliches stand in the way.  Then there is the war hero angle that takes up to much time and makes the film to long.  It feels shoved in and has nothing to do with the family conflict.  It was also hard to figure out some of the things going, because they put the camera to close in. There also are some annoying MMA sub-culture thing thrown in here two.

The performances are good though.  Tom Hardy embodies a young Marlon Brando from the 50s.  Joel Edgerton who continues impress with this also for his role in the film Animal Kingdom.  Nick Nolte gives his best performance since the The Thin Red Line.  I expect either Nolte or Hardy will get nominated for this film.  Above all I recommend this if you are fans of these actors or if you like MMA then you will like this.

rating = 64%