Civil War, by David Bax
It would seem that there are people within the world of mixed martial arts who think that what their sport really needs to fully cross over into the mainstream is an inspirational movie centered around it. A few years ago, David Mamet’s very silly film Redbelt appeared to have the full backing of the MMA industry, featuring real life stars such as Randy Couture. But no one saw that movie so the powers that be would appear to have ordained another contender, Gavin O’Connor’s new film, Warrior. This film gets closer to the mark but ultimately does itself in by trying too hard to reach Rocky-like levels of heartwarming myth-making.
Warrior is the story of two brothers, Brendan (Joel Edgerton) and Tommy (Tom Hardy), who haven’t seen or spoken to each other since they were teens but who both managed to find their way into MMA. Nick Nolte plays their recently sobered-up father who coaches Tommy in a tournament both brothers have entered. This fictional competition is repeatedly referred to as the “Super Bowl of mixed martial arts,” as if constant comparisons to more popular sports, no matter how forced, will make the enterprise more relatable.
As meticulously contrived as it is, the tournament provides almost all of the film’s best moments. O’Connor previously directed 2004’s Miracle and here as in that film the sequences devoted to the actual sport are the best and most thrilling. O’Connor has an obvious skill for building small, coherent and meaningful stories within athletic competition. Unfortunately, the movie is largely unable to translate that excitement whenever it steps outside the arena.
The main problem with the movie is its incessant exposition. Even at nearly two hours and twenty minutes, it endlessly needs to set things up. This is due to the fact that the film must relay to us the complex history between the brothers and their father, as well as the separate histories of their years apart. In addition, it has to explain the specific origins and rules of the fictional tournament. Lastly, it even has to explain at least a little bit about mixed martial arts in general. Even that last bit of exposition is a bit of a failure, though, as the screenplay seems confused about how established MMA really is. At times, it’s talked about as if it’s still the fringe sport it was a decade ago. At other times, it seems like it’s even more established in the world of the movie than in ours. Making things worse, the exposition is delivered in some of the most clunky ways in the movie-making handbook. On multiple occasions, important facts are learned because a character is watching a televised news report spelling things out.
When so much of the movie is taken up by dry explanations, it’s difficult to find the time to become invested in any of the things being explained. Just as the alcoholic father element is about to sink in, we’re on to the brother who’s about to lose his house. And from there, we’re on to the story of a best friend’s death in Afghanistan. The film rarely touches down and settles long enough for us to feel anything.
One of the occasions where it does, though, is a longish scene between Nolte and Edgerton, where the regrets of an inconsequential father are laid bare and the son’s love, though still apparent, isn’t enough to overcome the distrust built up over decades. It’s a heartbreaking and superbly acted scene that is sadly unique to the movie. A similar scene later, wherein the two brothers inexplicably run into each other on the beach at night, is the unfortunate opposite. It’s hollow, overblown and completely unfelt.
That scene comes before the inevitable one in which the brothers must face each other in the tournament. It’s in that fight sequence alone that their familial drama is actually able to play out. If O’Connor could have found a way to tell the story entirely through the competition, this could be one of the most exciting and rousing films of the year. Instead, it merely wishes it were.
This was my fear. They could have taken a conflict between brothers, like in Shotgun Stories, instead they chose to try and rope people in with a Rocky story, but not like the first edition. It looks more like II or IV.