The best stories are redemption tales of those down and nearly out on their luck and in life. More than a fair share of feature films featuring a protagonist’s struggle against forces tearing him apart have been released hoping that an emotional tug of the public’s emotions will reap big rewards at the box office. These days there’s a large segment of the audience that pulls for the antagonist. Think Stone Cold Steve Austin in the late 1990s. Steve Williams’ WWE (nee WWF) character changed the course of sports entertainment for good. Suddenly the bad guy was no longer despised, but cool.
Rare, however, that a conflict of Man versus Man leaves one rooting for both, hoping that a one-on-one battle where each are fighting for a moral cause can somehow declare the impossible: that both can formally be declared the winner. Watching Warrior, Lionsgate’s recent release on DVD and Blu-Ray, in addition to being available as a Digital Download and On Demand, left me pulling for both the war-torn former U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Tommy Riordan (Tom Hardy) and his estranged brother Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton).
Haunted by demons of the war in Iraq, Riordan is the film’s solitary hero who first appears with whiskey bottle in hand on the porch of his father’s home. Paddy, incredibly portrayed by Nick Nolte, one of the great actors whose dramatic impact on the silver screen reaches at least two generations. Paddy was an alcoholic head of an abusive and broken home suddenly asked to train Riordan for an upcoming MMA tournament — under the condition that their relationship is anything but father and son.
At stake in the tourney, a Grand Prix event named “Sparta,” is a $5,000,000 prize. While Riordan’s true motivation is built up for a revelation over time, Conlon’s struggles with real life are made apparent very early. Married with two children, Conlon is a former UFC fighter working as a high school physics teacher who while facing foreclosure has resumed his MMA career on the underground circuit unbeknownst to his students, principal and wife Tess (Jennifer Morrison). In a day and age where thanks to the Internet virtually nothing escape’s the public’s eye, Conlon is subsequently suspended and enlists old friend Frank Campana (Frank Grillo) to train him for Sparta – not knowing his younger brother has also entered.
As Warrior segues from the training of the fighters – Paddy’s old-school approach is shown in perfect sync to Campana’s Greg Jackson-like methods – to the Atlantic City-based Grand Prix – you’ll find yourself bonding with both brothers. Each one is fighting for the right reasons on a collision course to coming to grips with their respective pasts and their relationship with Paddy, working ever so hard for a reconciliation against his sons’ belief that he’s run out of second chances.
You not only don’t want to see either fighter lose, but unlike the standard good guy vs. bad guy formula there’s real suspense in wondering who will actually win. Debates over the projected winner of a main event are as old as time, but Warrior builds it so well, just like the reality of a viral world that’s made seclusion virtually extinct.
Another layer to the film is the explosive popularity of MMA despite a small resistance from the ignorant dismissing it as anything but the purity of hand-to-hand combat. Warrior may lack the main character who love to hate, but it’s refreshing take on the redemption tale makes it a hit, proving that like with Stone Cold Steve Austin there are those unafraid to go against the grain. In the case of Warrior, it’s “cool,” and actually ideal, to pull for the hero with a true sense of morals.
****
It’s Friday night at the Fights for Zuffa with UFC 141, back at it’s original pay-per-view time slot of 10 p.m. ET with the hugely anticipated main event between Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem. The heavyweights may not be the sport’s best division, but it’s the most appealing, and the clash between two of the best with the winner getting a title shot at champion Junior Dos Santos is what the UFC is anticipating to create a PPV boom entering 2012. The main card also features a lightweight battle many have tabbed as a projected “Fight of the Night,” Donald Cerrone vs. Nate Diaz. Jon Fitch vs. Johny Hendricks also compete for ascension in a suddenly wide-open welterweight division dealing with the void left by champion Georges St. Pierre’s ACL injury.
Jon Lane covers MMA for UFC.com. Follow Jon on Twitter: @JonLaneNYC
