WARRIOR

The actors here (Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, Nick Nolte) are all too talented for this movie to be a total wash but it's definitely underwhelming.  This movie suffers from comparison to The Fighter which is phenomenal, seriously, go watch that instead on Netflix Instant right now; even if it had been twenty years instead of one year, the comparison would be made because of the similar titles and (only vaguely) similar storylines.  The story here concerns a winner take-all mixed martial arts tournament where two of the competitors are, gasp, long lost brothers.  So if you want to see an MMA movie, and you can tolerate a cliched, overwrought and serviceable one in place of a conventionally 'good' one, then this film will work in a pinch.

How can a movie with so many ludicrous plot developments be kinda boring?  Edgerton plays Brendan, the good brother, who is beset by at least three movies worth of problems.  The (metaphorically) mustache-twirling banker tells him his mortgage is underwater (relevant buzzword!), he gets suspended from teaching because he moonlights as a fighter, and his baby daughter was born with no heart requiring constant injections of gold and diamonds to ensure her survival.  If he didn't miss any payments on his mortgage why is he in danger of losing his house?  Isn't it next to impossible for teachers to get fired even if they're grossly incompetent/molesterous?  Aren't babies usually born with hearts?

Banker:  You're gonna lose your house.
Brendan:  Can's something be done?
Banker:  (looks at papers) Nope I've got the script right here, it says you're gonna lose your house.

It's a pretty nice house.  I wondered how a teacher and a cocktail waitress could afford such a big house but I guess the answer is they didn't.  His wife, Jennifer Morrison from House and Star Trek, serves up the usual impossible bullshit: nagging about money, and nagging about attempts to get money.  She's not happy either way until the end when her husband actually starts winning and then she becomes quite the fair weather fan.  Hey lady, I think he needed your faith when he wasn't already on top of the world but I'm glad you're supportive now that he's got a 50/50 chance at 5 million dollars.  I don't think there are any other women in this movie.

Tom Hardy is like a shaved bull walking upright.  He's so muscular that he always looks hunched over.  His eyes and lips even bulge off his face like they too want to pound someone or something into jelly.  He doesn't do much talking.  He's the quiet brother, the damaged one, but since this is a PG-13 movie we can't wade too deeply into the waters of depravity and degradation; he drinks all the time and has a generic addiction to 'pills', but it's nothing like the terrifying portrait of addiction that Christian Bale offered in that other film about combative brothers.  Tom Hardy also has a magical and superhero-esque back story that makes me think the filmmakers were reluctant to make him genuinely troubled.

Kevin Dunn, probably best known as the dopey dad from the Transformers films, appears in a beyond-pointless subplot about Edgerton's students and the school principal getting together to watch the fights at an abandoned drive-in.  Who could possibly give a shit?  Two brothers that haven't spoken in 14 years are about to beat the shit out of each other until one of them wins 5 million dollars, and we're getting lots of cut-away shots to make sure we can see that a perfectly interracial group of friends and a bureaucrat are enjoying fisticuffs and urban renovations together.  Priorities people!

I don't watch MMA on TV regularly but I've seen my fair share.  The combat in this film sadly suffers in comparison, because I'm (mildly) used to seeing it on TV with longer shots, fewer cuts, and no added punching sound effects.  At least they got real color commentators, with authentic stupid bullshit to say.  Par example, Hardy wins his first match in a one hit knockout, and then his second match in a ten-or-so hits knockout, wherein the commentator remarks something to the effect of "I've never seen a knockout that fast!"'  How about the first one, guy?

~ If you have bat-fever in anticipation of next summer's The Dark Knight Rises and want to know what to expect from Tom Hardy as Bane, I would strongly recommend Bronson from director Nicholas Winding Refn who also made the upcoming Drive.  Strongly.

~ Hardy and Edgerton are English and Australian respectively, but they manage fine American accents.  Maybe not House or McNulty but still good.

~ I forgot to mention Nick Nolte.  Holy shit that voice.  He sounds so much like Nick Nolte.  He plays the recovering alcoholic father of the gruesome twosome.  He's not bad, but if you've seen Affliction then you've seen him really play an alcoholic.

~ My friend Boris opined that this film seemed like it was written by 'meatheads.'   Well put sir.  Although I should mention he liked it more than I did.

~ If you have bat-fever and you've recently traveled to Hong Kong you need to go to the hospital right now before you end up like Gwyneth Paltrow in that movie('s trailer, poster, opening minutes, etc)

~ Poor heartless baby.