I’ve been apart of The Dark Globe for about a month now and I haven’t yet written anything for it, so I thought it was about time, I signed on initially to do movie reviews and recently especially with this bad ass being fired from yet another job I have watch quite a lot of films recently, hopefully I can remember enough of them to do this job well enough!
The film I watched most recently is definitely one of my favourite all time films already and it only came out this year, I took the other half to the cinema a few months ago to see another film, I can’t remember what it was now but we had missed the showing anyway due to me getting stuck in traffic coming home from work.
We decided to see a film called Warrior instead as it was the only thing that was on, never heard anything about it but we were already at the cinema so bought tickets anyway.
It’s quite a long film by todays standards at 140 minutes, it definitely needed this amount of time to set up such a huge back story and story.
Since seeing it at the cinema I have watched it an additional two times, most recently last Friday night and I am still hooked.
The Story; Basically it’s about MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), if you like UFC you will love this film, just like anyone a fan of professional wrestling will love The Wrestler. Two guys, brothers, who were separated 14 years ago due to their mother leaving their abusive drunk father, one guy left with the mother the other stayed with the father and his girlfriend to raise a family. The brother who left comes back after desertion from the war after everyone in his unit but him were killed by friendly fire, eventually gets into fighting after kicking the top middleweight contender’s ass in a sparring session, the other guy gets into fighting due to him being in a huge amount of debt run up by his daughter needing a heart transplant.
Eventually they enter a mixed martial arts tournament called Sparta where the winner wins $5,000,000. Both men have their own reasons for wanting to win, their father just wants the family to be back together again, after stopping drinking for a thousand days.
Throughout the tournament both men are impressive in their own ways and eventually meet in the main event with what is one of the most emotional show downs of all time.
Character’s;
Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton) – The former fighter turned school teacher ends up getting suspended after he is seen fighting in a MMA bout in a parking lot, he then decides to try to get himself into this competition, I literally knew nothing about Joel before this film as I haven’t seen him in anything else but after this film I will definitely be keeping a close eye on what else he stars in.
Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte) – Probably the guy who you feel sorry for the most, not much is explained about Paddy apart from he was an abusive alcoholic back in the day, in the here and know he is a guy that’s trying his hardest to right his wrongs and get his family back together, the best and most heart wrenching scene is between Paddy and Tommy when Tommy mentally breaks him so much that he relapses back to the alcohol.
Tommy Reardon/Conlon (Tom Hardy) – Quite possibly the most impressive character of the entire film, the guy is an absolute beast in the cage, after his unit was killed in Iraq he saw a bunch of Marines trapped inside a tank that was quickly filling up with water, he rips the door off the tank and saves many a Marine, back in the US he tries to win the tournament so he can give the money to his best friends (who died in the friendly fire incident) wife, uses his mother’s maiden name to avoid being arrested however it comes out eventually. Looking at his psyique makes me extremely jealous, I would love it if he was an actual MMA fighter, watch this film and you’ll see why. I have seen Tom Hardy in many things before, quite a bit thinner in Star Trek: Nemesis, he was in Inception as Eames, and you get used to looking at what he used to look like and then you see him in this film and you are in awe.
The film also stars Jennifer Morrison best known for her starring role in House and Once Upon A Time as Brendan Conlon’s wife, former WWE and current TNA wrestler Kurt Angle who plays the fierce Russian fighter The Great Koba whose fight scenes are also impressive and Frank Grillo who starred in Prison Break and The Gates.
Overall Rating; There aren’t many films I am usually that satisfied with but this is definitely one of them, when you watch this film you are constantly at the edge of your seat whether it’s excitement, heartbreak, emotion or adrenaline, this film has it all. The fight scenes are so realistic it’s almost as if you’re actually watching MMA, this film definitely deserves a 10/10, a bold statement? Maybe, but go and watch this film and you won’t be disappointed.
It get’s released in early 2012, make sure you at least rent it before the world comes to an end!
Legendary Post 