'Warrior'

'Warrior' (PG-13) (3 1/2 STARS)

Writers: Anthony Tambakis, Cliff Dorman and Gavin O'Connor
Director: Gavin O'Connor
Starring: Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison, Frank Grillo, Kurt Angle

I am not a fan of Mixed Martial Arts as I am not a big fan of boxing. I like professional wrestling because I like the drama and interviews more than watching men kick the crap out of each other. I could never get into wacthing a live boxing match but I love the "Rocky" movies. I could never get into MMA but I absolutely had a great time watching the new and exciting "Warrior". I also was surprised how I wound up cheering by the end and how emotionally involved I was.

The story is standard, nothing new and full of cliches but so was "Rocky" and "The Fighter" and I was highly entertained and moved by both. This is not as good as those movies but it is surprisingly great. This reminded me of how everyone was surprised and moved by the iconic sleeper, 1984's "The Karate Kid". It has characters we grow to like and care for, it has superb and stirring fight scenes. It also has three great performances, one award worthy and two more that are star making.

"Warrior" tells the story of estranged brothers Tommy Conlon (Tom Hardy) who is a war hero and Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton) who is a school teacher. They are also ex MMA fighters who are both estranged from their father Paddy (Nick Nolte) an ex alcoholic who now is clean and sober. The father used to be a raging drunk and he left both boys and their mother. Later the father shows up to try to connect with both sons. There is an MMA tournament and both sons want to join it for different reasons. Tommy enlists his father to train him and Brendan picks an ex MMA legend to train him.

We know then from this plot description that there will be family drama and a lot of fights. What surprised me here is that after multiple fights I thought I would have started to get bored. I actually loved each fight and they are very well choreograped and extremely exciting. The director Gavin O'Connor directed the very fine hockey movie "Miracle" and he knows how to direct each fight here. He does a very good job at making movie goers who don't know anything about MMA able to follow the matches. Each match is different and exciting and we know what the final fight will be but I didn't expect it to be emotional and I didn't expect to cheer so much.

The emotional scenes between each son and their father also moved me and that was thanks to the great performances by the three lead actors. Nick Nolte is back in a big way with a very touching and emotional performance and I expected some false notes but Nolte was always on target. Joel Edgerton, who plays Brendan, is a very talented Australian actor who was very memorable in last year's fine crime drama "Animal Kingdom". Here he gets the more likable son role and he makes us care and he moves us. Tom Hardy, who was great in a small role in "Inception" and will soon get our attention as Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises", makes a great impression. He looks like a young Sylvester Stallone via Rocky Balboa here. He has a brute energy and intensity that jumps off the screen and he could become an amazing movie star.

The movie got me going and entertained me throughout its long running time. I was surprised at how much I loved the fights, how great the acting was and how touching the movie was. I was happy to see Nick Nolte back in full classic Nolte force. I fell in love with the screen presence, intensity and star power of Tom Hardy and I loved Joel Edgerton. I loved how Jennifer Morrison (TV's "House") took another thankless female role and made it a little better. I did want a little more of a sense of humor here and that was it's weakness, it gets too serious sometimes. Most of the humor comes from the MMA announcers and they are very amusing.

The movie does what all good underdog sports movies do. It gets us cheering and it has a story that touches us instead of giving us just a bunch of brutal fights. "Warrior" was a nice surprise and I got caught up in it. It will be intersting to see if this becomes a sleeper hit with movie goers and I hope it does, the movie earns it's cheers.