Warrior

9.5 out of 10 stars

Cast

Paddy Conlon............................Nick Nolte
Brendan Colon......................Joel Edgerton
Tommy Conlon..........................Tom Hardy
Tess Conlon.....................Jennifer Morrison

***** WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS *****

I APOLOGIZE FOR NOT POSTING I KNOW I'M A TERRIBLE PERSON. In my defense, school ruins my life. Especially honors classes. Never take honors classes. Not if you value sleep, friends, and a stress-free life... But really, I'd like to apologize for not posting because I just get carried away with homework, work, volleyball, and Downton Abbey. But I'm back! And to welcome you all back to my blog from my ridiculously long break, I'd thought I'd review the best movie ever made.

By the way someone came into the theater this week and spilled a FULL LARGE bag of popcorn a FULL LARGE soda and an ENTIRE bag of m&m's on the floor. Um if you're going to do that, you need to leave. Like no, get out of my theater. 

Okay, this movie, give me a second to compose myself. This is by far my favorite movie of all time. Every time someone so much as mentions the word "warrior", I get all worked up. I could go on for days about how much I love this movie. It's that good. Also, I cry every time I watch this movie. I do. It's sad. But what's more important is that it makes my older brother get a little misty eyed. If you can make an eighteen-year-old three-sport-star-athlete, rough-and-tough guy tear up, props to you. This movie is ridiculously amazing and if you haven't seen it, shame on you. 

Now I will admit that this movie wasn't very well advertised. I remember when it first came out. I had seen very few previews for it and I might have seen a poster for it once at one of the bigger movie theaters that my brother worked at. I think this might have been because it didn't have an extremely popular cast. Nick Nolte is a guy that most older-generation folks would know. Hardly any kids these days actually knows who Nick Nolte is. Joel Edgerton is an Aussie and he hadn't really been in many American movies before this one. Tom Hardy had only really been seen in Inception but few people remembered him. And I hadn't really seen Jennifer Morrison before or if I had, I wasn't really paying attention. However after this movie, I gained a lot of respect for all the actors. 

Nick Nolte. Nick, Nick, Nick. He was perfect in this movie. His character was the alcoholic-dad-trying-to-redeem-himself. The movie opens with him coming out of a church and going to his car where he listens to Moby Dick on tape. When he arrives home, he discovers his youngest son, Tommy (Hardy), sitting on his porch steps. When Tommy offers him a drink, Paddy (Nolte) declines saying "I'm done with that now." Also, when Paddy and Tommy are inside talking, Paddy explains how he's 100 (or was it 1000? I can't remember, it's been a while) days sober. My heart really went out for this guy throughout the whole movie. Yes, he was an awful father when his sons were younger, but he's trying his hardest to pull his life together and redeem himself. His main goal throughout the whole movie was to show his sons, especially Tommy, that despite the fact that he's an alcoholic, he still loves them with all his heart. 

The one thing though was that sometimes, I couldn't understand what Nick Nolte was saying. Whether it was because he was mumbling, or because he just has a really rough voice, I don't know. I just know that half the time I had to rewind the scene to catch was Nolte was saying. 

I will admit that the first couple times watching this, I didn't really like Joel Edgerton's character. I haven't the slightest idea why. I just know that I really wanted him to lose even from the beginning. 

But even though I wanted him to lose, I did think that he was fighting to a noble cause. Edgerton's character, Brendan Conlon, is the family man. He was really the only one out of his family that pulled his life together. He married a beautiful woman, had two kids, and got a job as a high school physics teacher. However, when his second daughter was born, she had some heart defects. She was put into surgery. Very expensive surgery. Brendan and his wife can't afford the medical bills. They're at risk of losing their house and time is running out to get the bills paid.

So in order to raise the money, Brendan had to find other jobs. He told his wife Tessa (Morrison) that he was a bouncer for clubs on the weekends. However, in actuality, he's been going to strip club parking lots and fighting in the ring. He makes a decent amount of money, but his wife hates it. She told him that she didn't want to have to tell her kids that "daddy gets beat up for a living." Eventually, after a particularly rough fight, Brendan comes home beat up and Tessa discovers what has really been going on. Brendan tells her that there's going to be a big fight in the Atlantic City and he wants to enter. If he wins, he'll get more than enough money to pay the bills (I think it was somewhere around 5 million dollars?). Tessa declares that she'll stay with him, but she strongly disapproves of him fighting and she will not be standing by him in Atlantic City. 

Brendan starts training in order to fight. He joins up with one of his friends who owns a gym. After the owner loses his best fighter to a knee injury, he agrees to sign Brendan up for the Atlantic City fight. 

Again, I'm saving the best for last so I'll get to Tom Hardy next. But as for Jennifer Morrison, I, personally, had never heard of her before this movie. I didn't really like her character in this movie. And once again I have absolutely no reason for this opinion. I just don't like female leads in movies like this. Plus I thought it was annoying that she didn't like her husband fighting. Like he enjoys it, LET HIM DO WHAT HE LOVES, WOMAN. Granted, eventually, she does come around and watch his last fight in Atlantic City. I was rather annoyed. I really don't have much to say about her except the fact that she should make up her mind and stand by her decision. And she shouldn't be so controlling. Like honestly woman, lighten up. 

Okay, give me a moment to collect myself. This is the movie that made me fall in love with Tom Hardy. He is an excellent actor. He's very young, too, so I am very impressed with him. Plus, Gary Oldman said in an interview that he thought Tom was one of the best young actors he had ever seen. So if you don't think Tom Hardy is a good actor, your argument is invalid because Gary Oldman said he was cool. 

So Tom's character in this movie breaks my heart every time I see it. Every. Single. Time. The movie opens with Paddy Conlon (Nolte) coming home and finding Tommy sitting on his front steps. He seems rather shocked to see him there which gives the viewers an indication that the two of them haven't seen each other in a very long time. Tommy offer's Paddy a drink but Paddy refuses saying that he's "done with that now." This gives the audience a hint that Paddy has a problem with drinking. So Paddy invites Tommy in and they start talking. Paddy keeps trying to be the nice, hospitable father but Tommy is very short and cold with him. At first I was kind of like "Wow, jerk. I mean no need to show your father love or anything, not like you're in his house." However, as the dialogue develops, you learn that Paddy was actually and alcoholic and probably abusive father. Tommy obviously hasn't gotten over that yet and still has some hard feelings towards his dad. 

The part though in the beginning that I didn't like was when Paddy was like "Tommy, I'm a thousand (or was it a hundred, I can't remember) days sober now." And Tommy tells him (sarcastically) how nice that is but he's too late now. At first I was like "whoa dude, harsh." Little did I know that that information was a foreshadow that lead to one of the most heart wrenching scenes in the movie. 

So basically, Tommy comes back from fighting overseas. That's all you know is that he was overseas and everyone is surprised to see him back. He goes to his dad's place and stays there for a little bit. He goes to his old, local gym and signs up for a membership. He starts working out and one day, the best fighter in the gym doesn't have anyone to fight against. The gym manager says that he'll give two hundred dollars to the next person who gets someone to fight this guy.

So Tommy's like "I'll fight him."

And then they all laugh.

And he's like "No really, I'll keep him warm until the next fighter gets here." 

So the head honcho of the gym checks to make sure Tommy has insurance and then lets him in the ring. Keep in mind that everyone in the gym thinks Tommy won't last ten minutes with this guy. So Tommy gets in the ring.

And he absolutely kicks this guys but. Like within three minutes, this guy is on the ground, out cold. 

And then Tommy just walks over to the gym manager and is like "You owe me two hundred bucks." And then he just walks away. 

Sassy.

So independently, Tom Hardy goes to Atlantic City with his dad as his "trainer" so to speak. He totally blows off the press conference that all the fighters are supposed to attend to but his brother (Edgerton) catches a glimpse of him. This is the first time in years that the two have seen each other. 

The fighting begins. And we see Tommy get in the ring first. He has no walkout music. He just walks in and goes to his corner. The other guy comes in and tries to be all showy but Tommy is having none of that. So the ref starts the fight and literally, Tommy throws one punch and the guy is out cold, on the ground face down. And then he just walks out. He just leaves the ring. One does not simply leave the ring after knocking someone out in one punch. But Tommy does.

So this whole beating-everyone-up-in-a-very-short-time thing continues for a while. We see some of Brendan's fights but they're long and not very interesting. 

And then we learn that the reason Tommy came back from fighting was because he went AWOL. When he was leaving, he came upon this tank that was sinking and there was a guy in the tank. Tommy ripped the door off the tank and then walked away. The police say that if Tommy doesn't win, they're taking him into custody. 

And then (again) Tommy and Brendan meet for the first time in years and they have a very emotional talk. Well it was emotional for me, and I think Brendan, but Tommy was just mad and distant. 

And then the most heart-wrenching scene in the whole movie happens. It cuts to Tommy in the hotel room and he hears his dad in the living room kind of rambling around. Tommy opens the door to find Paddy completely drunk and on the verge of an emotional meltdown. And then Paddy starts crying and Tommy hugs him and oh my word it is beyond sad. 

So then, we find out that Tommy and Brendan..... have to fight each other. What. I know, it was incredibly predictable but still very exciting. So Brendan shows up to the ring with his trainer and Tommy shows up a little bit later alone because Paddy's still getting over his drunkenness. And they start fighting. And it's intense. And it gets down to like the second to last round and (this is where I start to get teary-eyed because this really emotional background music starts playing) Brendan has Tommy in this hold.... and he dislocates his shoulder. OH. MY. WORD. I cringe every time. But Brendan's really upset because he didn't want to have to and Tommy's upset because his shoulder really hurts. 

So the next round starts. And Brendan's trainer, like the little jerk that he is, tells Brendan to dislocate Tommy's other shoulder. But Brendan wants to stop the fight because Tommy's hurt. Well Tommy is having none of that and he tries to fight Brendan. Of course Tommy can't really do anything because he has a bum arm but Brendan still puts him in a hold. 

And this is when the tears start flowing. 

Paddy shows up and sees what's going down and knows what's about to happen. Tommy's on the verge of all kinds of collapse. And Brendan is holding him saying "Tommy, please tap out. Tommy please." But Tommy refuses. And then they kick me while I'm down. Brendan says "Tommy, I love you. I'm sorry." 

And then Tommy taps out. And I collapse on the floor in a heap of tears and feels. 

But all these people are trying to swarm the ring and Tommy's on the floor because his shoulder's hurt. So Brendan pushes everyone away (yes, including the policemen who were coming to take Tommy away. Yah, I forgot about them, too) and he helps Tommy up and they walk out together. 

I shouldn't be allowed to watch this movie. 

Sources

Images-Google

Cast-IMDb