At first, I thought, "man, should have shown a little more backstory, why so much hate among the family and whatever". But then I understood, that would have made it just another family drama movie, which it cannot be. This movie is about the raw unsaid emotion of a family that always remains there. No matter what.

Joel was perfect in the role as a passionate, loving and fierce boxer and family man. Hardy was also great in the little convulated army-disgraced man who just wanted to do right by his fallen comrade. Nick Nolte did most of the magic with his eyes. And the last 20 minutes of the movie can make any grown man AND woman cry.

Cheers.

There aren't many fight movies I'd rate as high as a '10', and by fight movies I'm talking about boxing as the subject. "Rocky" and "Million Dollar Baby" are the only two I can think of off hand. But this movie transcends the genre and is so much more than a film about a pair of brothers reaching for the gold ring in the arena of mixed martial arts. There's a lot of human drama on display, and the three principals in the story pull off some of the most incredible performances one is likely to see in a film like this.

I was taken aback a bit by the number of other reviewers on this board who admitted to shedding a tear over parts of the story line. Some of the scenes affected me the same way and it's a little difficult to explain why, but the characters are so anguished and real that one can relate to them on some visceral level. I was especially heartened to see how the students of Sparta High School got behind their physics teacher, Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton) during the War at the Shore. That just showed a whole lot of loyalty and civic pride for the school to turn out the way they did.

The entire backdrop to the fight story of course is the anguished and disrupted home life of Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte),an alcoholic on the mend approaching a thousand days of sobriety, but with the inability to connect with the sons who abandoned him. I was a little surprised that the resolution to the story didn't involve Nolte's character engaging more purposefully with either Brendan or Tommy (Tom Hardy). It's left open ended, just as Tommy's status with the military is left open ended, though if you follow your instincts, the outcomes wouldn't necessarily be rewarding.

As for the fight scenes, I'd have to go on record stating that this movie has the best edited action in the ring I've ever seen. Though the pace is often relentless, none of it looks staged or phony, a credit to all the players involved and the principal photographer. Regarding the outcome of the final match, well before ring time one's brain scrambles trying to guess the outcome, as this is one film and one battle where you don't want either brother to lose, and you can't imagine the twist that will make the final verdict worthwhile. I won't spoil it here either, you'll just have to see and judge it for yourself.

This isn't a great film at all. The problem is that the guy who wrote and directed it, Gavin O'Connor, doesn't really have much idea of how to craft a screenplay and his final effort is unpolished; it's overlong and the pacing is off. The first hour has tons of underwhelming character drama while the last hour has too many similar-looking fights crammed into the narrative. Both elements needed to be more mixed throughout.

Of course, it doesn't help that the similar THE FIGHTER came out around the same time, and was much better for it. That film was based on a true story, had more pathos and a great turn from Christian Bale to fix it. This one features Tom Hardy in full-on thug mode and the unknown Joel Edgerton, who was equally forgettable in THE THING remake. Nick Nolte is good value, yes, but only to see how his lifestyle's aged him. Neither Hardy nor Edgerton are sympathetic and I was quite uninterested in the developing storyline.

This is not to say that WARRIOR is a bad film. There are a lot worse, and as a sports-fighting movie it's fairly realistic. It also builds to a decent climax, featuring a ferocious bout and an unexpectedly moving finale, it's just a shame it took so long to get there. The fights are as brutal as you can get for a PG-13 film and don't disappoint, but then I didn't expect them to. This is not a film I'd come back to, however.