The Warriors

Posted by will on February 17, 2011

“Can…you…dig it?”

“The Warriors” opens with Cyrus (Roger Hill), the leader of the largest and most notorious gang in the city, the Gramercy Riffs, calling a conclave for nine unarmed representatives of all area gangs to convene in his home turf. When the good-for-nothing leader of a bunch of toughs aptly called the Rogues assassinates Cyrus, the Warriors are framed for the cold-blooded murder. Now, with every NYC gang hot on their trail and their leader, Cleon (Dorsey Wright), missing, the Warriors must navigate their way from the Bronx back to their home in Coney Island … alive.

For the most part, once you get over the initial premise and lead-up, the movie melts into a cat-and-mouse chase taking place in dreary NYC locales along the subway route home. The story is simple but it doesn’t need to be complicated, this movie has enough problems.

Boy howdy. Let’s start with our badass heros.

The acting was decent but I wanted a greater sense of urgency from the Warriors. The characters seemed way too flippant to be running for their lives for a crime they didn’t commit. Where was the the fear? The anger? The outrage? Perhaps they were too busy running for their lives to show a smidgen of reaction to their situation. And, I suspect, character development was not really the selling point of this movie.

That being said, it would have made the plodding story more interesting — we don’t exactly need anything deep, just something progressive. This was especially disappointing in the character Swan (Michael Beck), the second-in-command of the Warriors. This guy had potential to grow as the movie progressed but really never showed a spine and was completely wooden in how he dealt with various scenarios the Warriors faced. We’ll just chalk this up as an opportunity lost.

I would be remiss if I didn’t label this movie in the action genre yet compared to today’s level of bloodshed, all of the sequences are child’s play. The combat during the rumbles and clashes was definitely of the Friday-night-at-the-local-VFW-for-the-local-wrasslin’-promotion ilk. So, it struck me odd that a movie so seemingly tame could have been hailed, at the time, as something so controversial. I think it is a good benchmark to see, either for better or for worse, how far we have come, as a society, at portraying violence. Yet, there is something to applaud when it comes to predominately bloodless violence that doesn’t require the watcher to see, explicitly, the brutal process and aftermath.

The highlight of the movie were the wardrobes of each individual gang. The costuming direction was definitely kitschy but highly appropriate and pretty memorable. Our heroes were decked out in what appeared to be the offspring of Native American influences with motorcyclist sensibilities. Other featured players that made up the quilt of posse uniforms include the grease monkey Orphans, overall-over-rugby shirt Punks, kimono-ed Riffs, Marcel Marceau aficionado Hi-Hats, and probably the most infamous of all, the clown-faced, pinstripe pushing Baseball Furies. If you ask me, they could have seriously pushed the limits with some of these identities but it was fun to see all of the unique factions with their distinct looks.

Overall, there was a lot to like and appreciate in a movie with a simple story and few plot devices. The movie, in the end, really relied heavily on the visuals and action and if you can appreciate that, then you can appreciate this film. There is really not much doubt that the Warriors are going to make it home while in the process, clearing their names. Their long ride through the night is made a bit more appetizing when there are a lot of interesting things to look at along the way.

The Verdict:

4 Comments on this post | Published in Action, Adventure & Epic, Cult Classic