Warrior – Family Is Worth Fighting For

Director: Gavin O’Connor

Actors:  Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison

Rating : 4 out of 5

In a normal feel-good, fighting-the-odds film, you root for the protagonist to win. Like in Rocky. In the end when s/he is being beaten you wish for a ‘miracle’, which is usually delivered. Now imagine a film in which you are rooting for both the opponents in the ring, wanting both to win and none to lose. Writer, director Gavin O'Connor brings you just that impossible story.

Two brothers with diametrically opposite personalities and fighting styles, from a broken family, find themselves facing each other in a mixed martial arts contest with both having reasons compelling enough to desperately want to win.

Once upon a time, in Hollywood, action films were purely action filled. Where there were beefy men who fought the odds and emerged victorious in the end. Lately however, in this genre, as in many others, just like mixed martial arts, we have mixed genre movies that try to blend in elements of one genre with another. And though there have been many that have tried to blend action and family drama, very few have succeeded with the right delicate balance like Warrior does.

Despite its action, this is predominantly a family film. It is the story of broken men, emotionally charred men, yet men who are good at heart, who at the core of it long for the comforts of a family. And it is family that becomes the leitmotif of the film. The older brother fights to protect his family, while the younger one fights because he wants to help the family of a fallen comrade. And the underlying motive for them is the happiness they never had growing up in a family life with a drunken father.

It is in travelling the landscape of family life that Warrior scores an ace. Though things are merely hinted at, but the violence – both physical and emotional - of the family life that the two brothers have endured, make them the men they become, giving them the drive to protect families they know and sets them off for a riveting final confrontation.

The film, very adeptly, makes no judgment on its characters. It just lays out the stories and the scars the characters carry, without ever judging any of them. This and the riveting ending where neither brother really loses – one gets the money the other the family he had not had for long - makes the film that much more compelling.  

Writer and director Gavin O'Connor, returns to the space he is most comfortable with - soaring sports film about fighting and winning against the odds. His previous such outing with Miracle (2004), is not just an eternally inspiring story, but also inspired many copies, including our very own ‘Chak De! India’ starring Shahrukh Khan.

Warrior is riddled with clichés and inconsistencies. Hence it becomes a special treat to see it grappling with them, and rising from them to build a physically and emotionally high-voltage drama. There’s plenty of inspiration for Bollywood in this film, on how to revive the separated-brothers genre, and make it viable for today’s viewers.

This review has been written for wire service, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS)