Jack Goes Confidential: ‘WARRIOR’ Wallops Punch-To-Gut During September Drought

For movie critics like me who deal primarily in so-called commercial releases (as opposed to art and speciality
 films), September is usually not something I look forward to.

It never fails!

From about the last week of August through the later part of September, the studios seem to dust off their shelves and pretty well throw their leftovers into the marketplace.

You can’t really blame Hollywood.

The public’s attention span during early fall turns to back-to-school, sports and the new TV season – and not to movies.

That all changes though on or around late September and October when the Oscar hopefuls and more serious films begin to invade local cineplexes. Until then the old, saying seems to come into play: ‘If they don’t want to see it—there’s no stopping them!’

But hold it right there!

There’s an exception to the current drought and it opens this weekend. It’s WARRIOR which can best be described as a mixed martial arts version of ROCKY complete with raw emotions, brutal smackdowns and riveting family drama.

Here two estranged brothers face the fight of their lives amidst the wreckage of their broken family.

Tom Hardy plays ex-Marine Tommy who’s haunted by his tragic past, returning to his hometown of Pittsburgh and now enlisting his father (Nick Nolte), a recovering alcoholic and his former coach to train him for an MMA tournament paying the biggest purse in the history of the sport.

Then there’s his brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a former MMA fighter who’s turned public school teacher and is bitterly estranged from both his father and sibling. But now, to make ends meet, Brendan returns to the ring which squarely puts him on a collision course with Tommy and ultimately has both brothers confronting the forces that tore them apart.

All that plus the brutal and hard-hitting action that is mixed martial arts!

WARRIOR! Fight for country. Fight for family. Raising 3 out of 5 rousing fingers.

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