Warrior (DVD)

Warrior is like if Shakespeare wrote a play about MMA. The film has got that level of drama and, even, to a certain extent, tragedy. What I thought would be a boring, trite, overly uplifting movie about fighting actually turned out to be a gritty, realistic, raw and emotional film about inner demons and family history and complicated brotherly relationships.
Tom Hardy stars as Tommy, a former Marine who just returned home to Pittsburgh. He finds himself a sudden internet sensation after he spares with a champion at the local gym and knocks him out cold in less than a minute. That is when he hears about the upcoming Sparta competition, a winner take all, $5 million cash prize MMA tournament that will pit the greatest middleweights against each other. Tommy used to be high school wrestling champ coached by his alcoholic and abusive father (Nick Nolte). So, despite a raging hatred for the way his father treated him and his mother (a relationship I can relate to far too well), Tommy reunites with his father merely as a trainer and not in any other way so he can get ready to win Sparta.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Tommy's older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) has his own problems. He's a family man teacher who is struggling to keep his house. The bank is threatening to take it away from him, his wife and their two young daughters. So, Brendan tells his wife that he is getting a second job as a bouncer, but the former UFC fighter instead fights in parking lots for money. After an especially bloody fight that leaves his face mangled, he loses his teaching job and decides to get back into fighting full time. He reunites with an old trainer buddy and when the guy he was training for Sparta breaks his leg, Brendan finds himself on his way to the competition as well.
I won't ruin the ending, except to say that, obviously, the brothers (who have YEARS of baggage) face off in the final match for the big prize. The entire movie, like the last, brutal, heartbreaking fight, is a fantastic tour de force, an emotional journey to take with these two characters. It's not just an MMA fighting movie. Instead, it is a family drama that centers around that world, with years of heartache and pain slowly coming to the surface throughout the excellently written, directed and paced film.
Edgerton and Hardy are both fantastic as the brothers, with Hardy especially coming alive in his role as a misunderstood and mysterious ex-Marine. He is like a caged lion in the octagon, with so much rage and anger hidden deep under the surface. But Nolte is especially fantastic as the alcoholic father who has found Jesus and is desperately trying to make amends for all the terrible things he's done to his two sons, who know hate him and refuse to let him into their lives. He proves why he's been a star for decades. Overall, the film is so much better than expected, and one of the best of the year.
Grade: B+

Starting soon (tomorrow if I have the time, if not, Monday) - my annual Best (and worst) of the Year lists!