1 Long Essay: 'Warrior' is an MMA tearjerker

Break out the hankies!

Photo: Lionsgate

I was surprised that the 2011 movie Warrior made me ugly-cry, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m a human being. I cry at weddings and graduations and at videos of shelter dogs being taken home by their forever families. I get choked up when I get good news, and my face leaks when I think about how much I have to be grateful for in this life.

And then sometimes I watch movies like Gladiator or Good Will Hunting and I sniffle, and cough, and wipe my eyes, and Good Will Hunting isn’t even that good a movie, it’s a weird fantasy about a working-class hoodlum whose mutant power is “wicked smahts” but the “it’s not your fault” scene between Damon’s South Boston genius and Robin Williams’ sensitive but macho shrink still gets me right in the feels.

I just didn’t expect to be moved by Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton’s portrayal of brothers fighting for their lives in Warrior but here we are.

The rules of masculinity are quite straightforward when it comes to weeping in public: only when your team loses the championship or at the funeral of a close family member. Otherwise, masculinity is one long game of “don’t blink,” only instead of blinking, it’s crying. There are always exceptions, of course. There’s a reason dive bars are dimly lit, save for the soft glow of the jukebox, and that’s because it makes it harder to see the tears when the sad songs play.

A man can sob in private, of course, but preferably in the shower.

I am a rulebreaker, though.

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All I knew about Warrior was that it was a boxing picture, and my favorite sport is movies about boxing. I’m not a fan of the actual sport of boxing, which seems to ruin the lives of the fighters, but Rocky? Get out of here. That is a helluva movie. Oscar-winner. I know some people think it is overrated, but it is not. Sylvester Stallone’s 1976 blockbuster about a mumbling, down-on-his-luck pugilist in Philly given a shot at the big time as a “tomato can” — an easy opponent — is an underdog and love story. It may be a perfect film.

Then there’s Scorsese’s unflinching portrait of insecurity and violence, Raging Bull, from 1980, and 2010’s The Fighter starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale as brothers inside and outside the ring. More recently, Jake Gyllenhaal starred in the gritty 2015 drama Southpaw, directed by Antoine Fuqua, and I dug it, it’s a real intense bout.

What about Michael Jordan in the next-generation follow-up to Rocky, Creed? Well, Creed is the second-best sequel ever made, in my opinion, right after The Godfather Part II. The sequels are pretty great too. Speaking of, I forgot to mention Rocky IV, the one where our wholesome boy goes fist-to-fist with Dolph Lundgren’s Ivan Drago, juiced-up Soviet superman.

But Warrior really sucker-punched me, first because it’s not actually a boxing movie, not technically. It’s about mixed martial arts, which puts it in the same genre ballpark as a boxing picture. They’re both savage sports, but I suppose MMA, for all its bloodiness, isn’t just two dudes ringing each other’s skulls; it’s also two dudes choking each other out.

Both combat sports are firmly grounded in strategy and blunt force, but mixed martial arts is slightly more dramatic and usually climaxes with excruciatingly painful-looking holds and locks. There is punching, sure, like in boxing, but there are also elbows in the face, and kicks to the gut, and vicious, up-close grappling. Limbs bent into agonizing positions. It’s not as singularly focused on head trauma, although there is plenty of that. Think of it as Boxing+.

I can’t help but associate MMA with certain kinds of extremely online aggro dudes who can’t grow a beard to save their lives. Is this a stereotype? Yes, 100%. Are there mixed-martial-arts fans who are normal, happy, well-adjusted human beings whose computer hard drive isn’t full of sexist/racist/homophobic memes used to harass people on social media? Sure.

I am a fan of Warrior so I guess that makes me a potential fan of MMA and I have never terrorized anyone on a message board and I can grow a beard and I can also acknowledge that human cockfighting is grotesque and probably bad for the souls of spectators and participants and executives but, also, martial arts is a skill that combines grace, strength, strategy, and mental power.

And I would cry if I ever got punched and didn’t immediately pass out from fear.

Warrior’s director, Gavin O’Connor, serves up a gritty, grounded melodrama with plenty of vicious action within MMA’s octagonal ring. Like most top-notch movies about the fighting life, Warrior is about underdogs, specifically, a broken family of underdogs.

The boxing genre is crammed with cliches, but, ironically, when done well, those cliches are the whole point. In the hands of experienced and authentic storytellers, a cliché is no different from a spice, sprinkled strategically, generously, and skillfully. And Warrior connects, even during scenes that seem familiar. It’s not hard to guess who is going to win and who is going to lose, but as the saying goes, it’s the journey, not the destination.

A beefy Tom Hardy stars as a troubled vet returning to working-class Pittsburgh with a debt to pay and a plan: reconnect with his sober father and punch his way to a purse.

The father, an outstanding Nick Nolte, wasn’t the best dad growing up; in fact, he was an abusive alcoholic boxer who tore his family apart, but he yearns to make amends now. But is it too little too late for the old man?

As Hardy’s character’s older brother, Joel Edgerton is phenomenal as the son who stayed behind and whose relationship with his younger sibling ruptured long ago, the unfortunate consequence of a family torn asunder by addiction.

Edgerton’s character, a former fighter and high school teacher, needs money too; he can’t afford his mortgage and his daughter’s heart surgery, and it doesn’t take long for these two estranged brothers to be put on a collision course at a winner-takes-all MMA tournament.

Hardy, a powderkeg of pain who looks as big as when he played the Batman villain Bane, is a stalking beast, and Edgerton’s nice but tough guy is more cerebral while being capable of absorbing a ton of abuse. Meanwhile, Nolte is heartbreaking as a dad who desperately wants to be forgiven, his trademark gravel-throated voice trembling with longing.

I want to stress that the fight choreography in Warrior is brutal, just bone-crunching. If this movie were a musical, the MMA scenes would be the songs, sudden, welcome, outbursts of energy and emotion. And like a musical, Warrior also has heart, to paraphrase Rocky’s growling trainer, Mickey.

Warrior pack’s an emotional wallop because it’s about men bursting with feelings who can only heal if they first beat the shit out of each other, metaphorically and physically. Hardy is a tank made out of meat, fueled by testosterone and anguish, and Edgerton is his usual vulnerable self playing a family man who has a secret, which is that he’s really good at breaking limbs.

Will this family of troubled man-hulks be able to hug it out? I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say this: during the final few moments of Warrior, I let the tears and the snot run free. Like a man.

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Advice For Men: Get yourself a pedicure