Warrior Reviews

Choppy editing makes a hash out of the fight scenes, and, by the end, a Neanderthal sensibility asserts itself: A brotherly beating makes the heart grow fonder.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Drawn-out and threadbare, its occasional moments of authentic family drama failing to carry the weight of the 140-minute running time.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Alas, although the acting's uniformly strong, and the film has kitchen-sink grit to spare, it errs more on the side of 1995's Rocky IV than John Avildsen's '76 original...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

A sports film whose promise of a more nuanced take on familiar genre tropes ends up battered and bruised.

Full Review

This tale of two brothers competing in a mixed martial arts contest is gritty, laboured and totally devoid of suspense or surprise, despite the best efforts of actors Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

O'Connor treats the brothers' stories like two separate movies, but both are cliched, and we don't learn enough about the rules of mixed martial arts to be drawn into the many, many bouts we see.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Grainy, hand-held cinematography can't lend authenticity to the forced emotion.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

A cheap exploitation picture wrapped in miles and miles of stale would-be Oscar scenes...

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

... for all of its supposed realism and reflection of hard times in America, the movie plays out as complete fairy-tale nonsense. It isn't a working-class success story -- it's a working-class fantasy world.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

a ludicrous mashup of the dysfunctional family of "The Fighter" and the entire Rocky series.

Full Review | Original Score: C

If another writer, someone that does not telegraph the entire story, was brought in to help the multiple hat-wearing O'Connor, there could have been some surprises in store for the viewer.

Full Review | Original Score: C

a hodge-podge of inspirational sports movie cliches mashed with pseudo-intellectual bullpucky trying to rise above its stand as a blatant advertisement for mixed martial arts

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5

Its most rewarding moments being the well-choreographed brutal MMA fight scenes.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

All the director and co-writer Gavin O'Connor does is apply old boxing-film tricks to what is, for the movies, a new sport. Then he doubles them.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Nolte's performance is masterful, marshalling together pain and regret and a slowly dawning comprehension in a single wince. But all this film has going for it besides him are its incredibly brutal fight scenes.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

In Gavin O'Connor's hands ... the few-holds-barred matches are certainly the main event: subtle characterization and deep back-story are not wanted on this two-fisted voyage of the Conlon family.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Suddenly Thunderdome doesn't seem like such a pipe dream anymore.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

...slow, predictable, woodenly acted, and utterly preposterous.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Has to conform to the lunkhead straitjacket of the tournament format: one dufus pounding another in extreme close-up for what seems like an eternity.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Relies on the graininess of the indie/gritty shaky-camera style rather than on the integrity of the narrative to convince viewers the film is more artful than cornball.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4