{"id":493,"date":"2012-09-10T11:10:25","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T09:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=493"},"modified":"2012-09-10T11:10:25","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T09:10:25","slug":"is-trash-always-trash-the-strange-case-of-the-film-warrior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2012\/09\/10\/is-trash-always-trash-the-strange-case-of-the-film-warrior\/","title":{"rendered":"IS TRASH ALWAYS TRASH?: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE FILM WARRIOR<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

It often happens that suddenly a particular actor starts appearing in a number of well-publicised films without being himself particularly famous (or at least, not here). After seeing English actor Tom Hardy in Inception<\/em>; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy<\/em> and as the masked Bane in The Dark Knight Rises<\/em>, and knowing he\u2019d played Sikes and Heathcliff in recent TV adaptations, I got curious, checked his IMDB profile… and got to Warrior<\/em>. Oh, my, that poster!! (see for yourself: www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0362766\/<\/a>). That did it, also the 8.3 rating, which means that this quite unknown film, not even released in Spain, is currently no. 155 in IMDB\u2019s 250 top films (of all times). And, according to audiences, among the 5 best for 2011. Strange, very strange.<\/p>\n

I watched the film enthralled, and I don\u2019t know how to begin to explain myself. I\u2019ll begin, perhaps, by calling it \u2018male melodrama\u2019 in its purest state (spoilers ahead). The plot concerns two Irish-American brothers, Brendan (the eldest, played by Australian Joel Edgerton \u2013recently seen battling The Thing) and Tommy (our Tom). They were estranged when their sick mother had to run away from their abusive, alcoholic father; Brendan, around 16, stayed on for the girl he eventually married. Tom (14?) fled only to see his mom soon die a miserable death. Both brothers hate their father\u2019s guts but owe the man, a former boxer, their professional vocation as fighters.<\/p>\n

By the time the film begins, 15 to 20 years later, Tommy is back from a stint in Iraq (he did something heroic there but is actually a disgusted deserter). Brendan \u2013recycled as committed high school teacher and family man\u2013 faces foreclosure, ruined after paying for his daughter\u2019s heart surgery. Guess what? Both find the solution to their woes in fighting the MMA (\u2018Mixed Martial Arts\u2019) Spartan Fighting Championship (this does exist \u2013it has contenders fight inside a cage…). Tommy asks Dad (Paddy, played Nick Nolte, who got an Oscar Nomination!!) to train him for pragmatic reasons \u2013no forgiveness at all. Guess who fights whom in the tournament\u2019s final? And who wins… <\/p>\n

Echoes of many other boxing films runs through Warrior<\/em>, from Rocky<\/em> to Raging Bull<\/em>, passing through the unmissable Fight Club<\/em> and even Cinderella Man<\/em>. In this one, the key note for each fighting brother is clear as daylight: Tommy\u2019s rage makes him fast and furious (and so bulky!!); Brendan\u2019s despair makes him tenacious and, ultimately, impossible to defeat (also more slender!). His sweet wife, first horrified, cheers him on, as bloodthirsty as the crowd of marines supporting Tommy. Yet, and maybe here\u2019s the key to the film\u2019s unexpected popular success, Warrior<\/em> is a film about reconciliation among brothers \u2013the new men that must replace the damaged generation represented by the father. Both, by the way, make a stand against appalling conditions ultimately created by their own Government, whether they are the Iraq war (Tommy\u2019s buddy was killed there by friendly fire), or the failure to provide medical insurance for the children of the middle class (there\u2019s also a greedy banker involved in Brendan\u2019s fall).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying at all this is an 8.3 film and I sympathise with all the appalled IMDB users at a loss to explain this rating (it\u2019s not hype this time, or paid voters…). Yet, this piece of trash, so clich\u00e9-ridden, so predictable, so downright brutal, is also strangely sincere and completely straightforward about what is valued in current American masculinity. Artistically it is aeons away from Fight Club<\/em>, but not being pretentious, this is hardly relevant. It is indeed easy to spoof, as 300<\/em> was, but, and this is possibly Tom Hardy\u2019s main contribution, Tommy is too scary to laugh at (and Brendan too close to the brink of disaster).<\/p>\n

I saw Warrior<\/em> while trying hard to find an American novel focused on an alternative, anti-patriarchal, pro-civil rights masculinity (for work related to the research group I belong to). And, well, I\u2019m beginning to have the nagging suspicion that this is it: there\u2019s no alternative in current US culture, although Brendan and Tommy are<\/em> indeed the alternative to Paddy. \u2018Harder to find women who let themselves be punched these days, right?\u2019, Tommy sneers when Paddy explains that he\u2019s alone. Or maybe I\u2019m depressed and I\u2019m wondering where the 8.3 rated US film (or novel) on the alternative is (but do see Susanne Bier\u2019s In a Better World<\/em>, a Danish film).<\/p>\n

Any suggestions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It often happens that suddenly a particular actor starts appearing in a number of well-publicised films without being himself particularly famous (or at least, not here). After seeing English actor Tom Hardy in Inception; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy and as the masked Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, and knowing he\u2019d played Sikes and Heathcliff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categoria","tag-gender-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}