1. Notes: 2 / 4 months ago 

    This weekend I decided to rent Warrior, a surprisingly powerful movie about competitive mixed martial arts. I don’t care about MMA fighting, but I don’t like boxing either and a love boxing movies.

    Still, I passed on Warrior in theatres because the trailer made it look a little hokey. It seemed like nothing more than Rocky in the world if mixed martial arts, but with two brothers in the ring. It didn’t help that the film was overshadowed by The Fighter which seemed to cover similar territory (underdog fighter, brotherly discord) only with an Oscar pedigree. But positive reviews and an Academy Award nomination for Nick Nolte put this film on my radar and I’m really glad I checked it out.

    Warrior tells parallel stories of estranged brothers who compete in a mixed martial arts competition. Separated by their parents’ divorce (older brother Brendan stayed with dad while Tommy left with mom), the two haven’t spoken in years. Tommy comes back from Iraq and reluctantly enlists their father to train him. Brendan has a family to suport and fights in competitions to supplement his teacher’s salary. Naturally, they’re destined to face off in the MMA competition, and it’s a credit to the filmmakers and actors that this doesn’t feel silly or contrived.

    Warrior plays out a lot like a boxing movie with its training montages and tournament of fights. Nolte manages to avoid the cliches of both the ‘grizzled old trainer’ role and the recovering alcoholic/deadbeat dad character. Joel Edgerton (who is popping up in everything lately) is easy to root for as Brendan, and Tom Hardy’s work here makes me even more excited to see him go toe-to-toe with Christian Bale’s Batman in “The Dark Knight Rises”.

    I decided to pair Warrior off with David Mamet’s Redbelt, a movie I’d seen but wanted to re-watch. Redbelt is about a jujitsu instructor named Mike Terry (played by the always great and awesomely named Chiwetel Ejiofor). Terry refuses to compete because he believes doing so weakens the fighter. He lives in a world of honour and tradition, but maintaining those values has kept him from achieving financial success and security. A chain of unfortunate events puts Terry’s business and family in danger, so he must choose between living by his personal code or competing for much-needed prize money.

    Redbelt is a great little movie full of Mamet’s signature dialogue and boasts strong performances (Tim Allen is especially good as a Hollywood action star who befriends Terry after a bar fight). While the movie lacks the conventional showdown you’d see in a boxing film, its climax allows Terry to defend his honour without forsaking his code.

    Warrior and Redbelt are both underrated gems. You don’t have to care about martial arts to enjoy them, you just have to like character-driven underdog stories.

  2. Notes

    1. jellabyjones said: I hear Uncle Owen kicks a lot of ass in this movie.
    2. liketheappliance posted this
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Welcome to '... like the appliance', a collection of random thoughts from Anton Blender. Mostly about pop culture, a lot on comic books and television.

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