THE WARRIORS (1979) - ****
(NOTE: This is a review of the Theatrical Edit)
After an epic trek through New York City during the night in fleeing some 100,000 gangmembers and cops that wanted to "bop" them off, the Warriors return to their hub of Coney Island in the early wee hours of dawn. They were framed for the assassination of the great gang leader Cyrus, but they're back home safely.
Their Warchief Swan (Michael Beck) should be relieved, but as he scans over their homeland of ghetto slum housing. He instead utters:
"This is what we fought all night to get back to?"
Walter Hill's 1979 cult classic is a hyper-reality comic book pulp adventure that is so serious, so taken for granted that diverse New York gangs would actually wear gimmick costumes as they go kill each other, we believe this movie.
This is an organic universe with its own rules that the characters know and never violate for the sake of a plot point. Its such a world that its a pity that only this movie and a video game (a remake of the film itself) are the only creative entries for us to explore.
People, mostly born after STAR WARS and RAIDERS, complain that this supposed "action movie" is lacking, and I tell them to screw off. I don't watch THE WARRIORS for the action. I mean, the bat brawl with the infamous Baseball Furies is cool and all, but I watch this picture because of something that current action cinema lacks for the most part.
THE WARRIORS is pure, but far from stupid, masculine bravado in the tradition of Ford or Leone. Hill effectively wrote and directed a western for the streets of his time. The man that embodies this narrative is Beck who had the tools to be a great actor, an icon perhaps. Unfortunately, either Hollywood failed to act on him or he was born a few decades too late. Or XANADU, whatever came first.
Beck's Swan is a badass because he doesn't need to raise his voice. When the jobber Orphans' leader demand that he and his tribe take off their vests and pass through the turf as civilians, Beck only utters "smurf You." In this age of Tarantino when everyone drops the F-bomb like candy, Beck delivers quite possibly the atomic bomb that psychologically castrates the Orphans, and you know these guys from Coney mean business.
Just like his later endeavors SOUTHERN COMFORT and THE LONG RIDERS, Hill's title characters are a gang of archetypes. There is the comic, the kid, the redneck, you name it. Then there is the muscle Ajax, played by the underrated James Remar. Unlike his Warchief, Ajax is aggressive, impulsive and wants to brawl with everyone. If Swan wisely picks his battles, Ajax want the battles to pick him. Its just a pity that he's stupid.
Though the performance everyone seems to want to only remember is David Patrick Kelly as the actual assassin. He's the utterly insane nutjob of darkness with a logic matrix that only he seems to comprehend. He taunts Beck with beer bottles clanging, asking him nicely with a mennacing tone to "to come out and PLAAAAAAY!" The finale on the nasty sands of Coney is one for the ages that only both Beck and Kelly could make seem effortlessly awesome.
Yet as we enjoy these Warriors, stuck behind enemy lines and miles away from home, brawl and run through the streets, what makes this more than a really good popcorn trip is Beck's chemistry with a dame he picks up on the way.
Well, she would be a dame if she could afford the make-up and to not live in the sort of crummy housing that are hostile even to cockroaches. They end up on a subway car, and happen to confront some high school prom couples and they lock eyes.
This is when we realize that save for the exception perhaps of that crazy asshole, these "hardcore soldiers" are only kids who fell through the cracks of society. While they are wasting and wrecking each other for useless turf they so greatly prize, people above them don't give a damn, or if they do, they look down on them like rats who happened to invade their space.
The dame, covered in filth and sweat, tries to straighten her hair out and Beck stops her. They may have nothing, but they still have something....pride.
Definately one of my favorite movies.
