Rocky times three

I’ve never been a sports fan. For nearly my entire life I just couldn’t care which team was in the Super Series or the World Bowl or any other professional athletic bout. But lately I’ve caught a few games of the San Francisco Giants in their fight for the championship. Thus when I sat down to view a movie for this week’s column I decided I’d do something different – I’d watch a sports movie.

While scrolling through the Netflix instant streaming queue I found a 2011 film called “Warrior” starring Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte and Joel Edgerton. Most sports movies appeal to me about as much as watching the real thing does. For instance “Field of Dreams” may be the penultimate of baseball movies, but it bored me to tears. But movies about fighters, that’s a completely different story.

I remember watching “Rocky” with my father at a very early age. I loved everything about “the Italian Stallion.” After “Rocky” was over dad would get on his knees and play box with me. Only I wasn’t playing. I distinctly remember giving Pop at least two bloody noses while he somehow never laid a finger on me. Only years later did I realize my Dad was a saint and just took my pint-sized smacks to his face all in fun. I was no boxing virtuoso. Dad was just patient.

The characters in “Warrior” however, are virtuosos. The two brothers: Tommy (Tom Hardy) and Brendan (Joel Edgerton) were raised under the oppressive fist of their alcoholic father Paddy (Nick Nolte.) The film sees the brothers each struggling with their own past and their father’s shadow while each joins a mixed martial arts championship tournament.

Brendan is a high-school physics teacher who has fallen on hard times. The bank informs him his home is about to be repossessed. Brendan takes to fighting – a career he once dabbled in prior to his academic life, marriage and children – to try to earn enough money to keep his home. When the MMA tournament “Sparta” is announced with its five million dollar purse Brendan feels he has no choice but to give it his all.

Tommy is another story. Tommy confronts his abusive alcoholic father, Paddy after years of being out of each-others’ lives. Paddy is now proudly nearly 1000-days sober and wants a chance to reconnect with his son. Tommy doesn’t buy the remarkable conversion of his father asking: “Do people like you have 24 steps or just the usual 12?” Yet surprisingly Tommy – a once aspiring wrestler – seeks his father’s help in coaching him to fight in “Sparta” as well.

We don’t know Tommy’s motivations till very late in the film but as the two estranged brothers get closer to their goal and closer to a title bout we know they are going to meet in the ring and only one will walk away with the prize money.

In a way “Warrior” is little different than any other underdog sports movie or fighting film like “The Karate Kid” or the aforementioned “Rocky.” But writer/director Gavin O’Connor ducks when we think he should be weaving. With a feint to the left O’Connor jabs a triple combo story of redemption, brotherhood and forgiveness right under our best defenses. We’re not watching just one contender with a heart of gold try for his shot at the title, we see three different men in their own individual yet related epic battles.

Brendan’s story is possibly the most pedestrian of the three. We want him to win because he’s a good man, loves his wife and kids and has fallen on ubiquitous hard times. Where “Warrior” triumphs is in not just telling us that Brendan is worthy of the prize but by showing us as well.

Tommy’s story is not only the struggle for the title but also that of a mystery. His motives and past aren’t as clear cut as Brendan’s. We aren’t really given a clear picture of why he’s doing what he’s doing until near the end of the film. Piece by piece larger parts of who Tommy is and what he’s been through are made known to both us and his father.

Nick Nolte as the recovering alcoholic Paddy may not seem to be such a stretch for the veteran actor but I’ve never seen him feel a role more than here. Nolte’s Paddy is a man built up of thousands of bricks of shame and regret. As a father and husband he was more than a failure he was a bloody knuckled tyrant. His path is not against trained fighters in a cage but against his own past, his own deeds and his late realized desire to be the man he always should have been. It’s no surprise he is listening to an audio book recording of Melville’s Moby Dick throughout the film.

“Warrior” mixes these three stories together in another deft sleight of hand so that we don’t even realize there’s really so much going on. But you do feel the emotional punches of the story as three solid characters are brought together at last in a cage-match fight to end all fights.

I was moved to tears on more than one occasion throughout the film, and no not tears of boredom (I’m calling you out Kevin Costner). “Warrior” is a powerful story about three very different people from the same home rising to challenge the greatest odds. It’s much more than a “sports movie”, it’s a champion in its own right.

Warrior (2011)

Director: Gavin O’Connor

4 1/2 out of 5 Mixed Martial Arts Masters

Starring: Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte and Joel Edgerton

Runtime: 140 minutes

Rated PG 13 for sequences of intense mixed martial arts fighting, some language and thematic material