The Purge: Anarchy

The Purge: Anarchy – Dir. James DeMonaco (2014)

The Purge was one of the surprise hits of 2013. Produced on a meager budget of $3 million, it went on to rake in over $89 million worldwide. The general consensus from critics was that the film had an interesting premise that was never fully realized.

In the near future, United States has been restored by the New Founding Fathers of America, who have instituted the annual Purge. For 12 hours out of the year, all crime, including murder, is legal. The NFFA expound the virtues of the Purge for lowering crime rates, unemployment, and poverty. Of course, they fail to mention that the poor are easy prey while the wealthy remain safe and sound in their mansions. The first film established the parameters of its high concept with Ethan Hawke as the patriarch of an upper middle-class family with a high-tech security system under siege when they give sanctuary to an injured stranger.

The Purge: Anarchy expands upon the world beyond the walls of a single suburban home and into the streets of Downtown Los Angeles. It shows just how everyone participates in the Purge, or at least, tries to survive it. The homeless hunker down in the subway tunnels praying no one finds them. The elite one-percent don't even leave their homes to purge, not when they can simply order take out. Human beings are delivered directly to them to be hacked to bits by machete. Or they're rounded up and hunted in an arena like a homicidal version of lasertag. Meanwhile, a fiery revolutionary named Carmelo Johns (Michael K. Williams) hacks into broadcast signals to spread his message of bringing down the New Founding Fathers.

For Eva Sanchez (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter Cali (Zoe Soul), the Purge means they board up the windows and hide in their apartment until the night is over. Shane and Liz (played by real-life married couple Zach Gilford & Kiele Sanchez) are more concerned about how to tell their family that they are breaking up. However, a creepy gang of masked thugs have cut their fuel line leaving them stranded in the city just before the Purge commences. Sgt. Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) is fully prepared for the Purge. He's bulletproofed his muscle car and loaded it with a stockpile of weapons. The Sarge is on a mission of revenge against a man who killed his son in a drunken driving accident.

Their paths cross when a government-sponsored death squad busts into an apartment complex and drags Eva and Cali onto the streets for execution. Turns out, people aren't killing the lower classes in large enough quantities so the NFFA have sent out their own squads equipped with body armor, automatic weapons, and surveillance equipment tapped into the city's traffic cameras. Sarge becomes the reluctant protector for this frightened quartet

Writer/Director James DeMonaco is clearly influenced by the works of John Carpenter with The Purge owing a debt to Assault on Precinct 13. Not surprising since DeMonaco penned the script for the 2005 remake. Anarchy is reminiscent of Escape From New York as well as The Warriors. Don't worry, there's no need to see the first film to understand the sequel. Edwin Hodge, who played the stranger, is the only returning cast member.

DeMonaco gets to play with triple the budget of the previous movie though that's still barely a drop in the hat compared to big Hollywood blockbusters. Yet, Anarchy looks impressively slick with DeMonaco setting the mood with several slick aerial shots of the city at night. And there's a lot of other cool imagery to compliment them, such as a pair of 18-wheelers roaming the empty highways for unsuspecting targets. A woman, armed with a machine gun and a bullhorn, expounds the wrath of god as she picks off random passersby. At one point, the protagonists drive by a dazed girl covered in blood and looking just like Carrie. One character jokes, "Maybe he deserved it," when he sees a stock broker strung up in the banking district. By the way, the banks have moved their money to undisclosed locations in preparation for the Purge.

Beneath the visuals is a story that lacks any nuance. DeMonaco hammers home his message with the subtlety of the Gatling gun used by the main antagonist. The rich and powerful are preening Caucasians dressed in tuxedos or prep school uniforms while the resistance fighters are obvious allusions to the Black Panthers. Shane and Liz are the least interesting of the protagonists, mostly there to state the obvious when they aren't serving as the bickering Bickersons. At least Eva and Cali grow beyond their designation as damsels in distress. Frank Grillo really is the anchor of Anarchy. As the Sarge, he's Charles Bronson, Kurt Russell, and the Punisher all rolled into one. It's a shame he wasn't able to take the lead in Joe Carnahan's proposed remake of Death Wish, Grillo is a throwback to the action heroes of gritty 70's era action flicks.

The Purge: Anarchy is a marked improvement over its predecessor. This is a lean, mean action movie harkens back to the exploitation genre of the 1970's.

Rating: *** (*****)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Dirs. Joe & Anthony Russo (2014)

The merry Marvel movie making machine chugs along as Phase 2 is fully underway. Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World scored at the box office as they capitalized on the runaway success of The Avengers, the third highest grossing film of all time. If you had told a comic book fan decades ago that Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America would be at the center of a billion dollar franchise, they would probably think you were crazier than Deadpool. Despite being integral parts of the Marvel Universe for nearly half a century, they were considered B-list characters while Spider-Man and the X-Men were the publisher's big sellers. The landscape of the comic book and movie industries has changed.

Captain America: The First Avenger wasn't as critically praised as some of Marvel Studios' other releases, but it stood out in the deluge of superhero movies thanks to a period setting and a strong nostalgic feel courtesy of director Joe Johnston, who also helmed the underrated Rocketeer. Since then, Captain America (Chris Evans) has been thawed from his icy slumber, joined the Avengers, and emerged victorious against an alien invasion. In The Winter Soldier, he still finds himself acclimating to a modern world where black and white has merged into shades of gray. After rescuing a freighter ship from a band of pirates, Cap is disgusted to learn that the vessel was a SHIELD installation covertly spying on other nations. He's even less pleased when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and his superior Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) drop the bombshell of a new operation that will launch additional Helicarriers into a connected network of surveillance and devastating weaponry.

Cap's concerns are validated when Fury is attacked by a masked mercenary known as The Winter Soldier, who is revealed to be best friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), left for dead after a raid on a HYDRA train. Barnes has been brainwashed by the secret organization that has infiltrated SHIELD at the highest levels. Hunted down by nearly every resource at SHIELD's disposal, Cap must rely on a skeleton crew of allies that includes Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), and pararescue trooper Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) aka The Falcon.

Marvel made a risky choice when they selected Joe and Anthony Russo as the directing team. The only substantial credits on the resume of the Brothers Russo were several episodes of Arrested Development and Community. Despite a background in sitcoms, the Russos excelled at creating a vibrant superhero film. Unfortunately, Winter Soldier suffers from an overreliance on shaky cam and rapid editing when it comes to hand to hand fight scenes. Luckily, the camera is allowed to breathe during many of the more elaborate set pieces and there are plenty of them. This time around, Captain America proves why he is a super-soldier during the opening prologue as he takes down a team of mercenaries before a showdown with MMA fighter Georges St. Pierre as Batroc the Leaper. Cap sends a man flying into the air with one kick while slinging his trademark shield off parts of the ship to knock out numerous opponents. He also fights a dozen HYDRA agents inside an elevator and single-handedly destroys a quinjet. Cap's supporting cast also gets their chance to shine with Black Widow kicking ass and the Falcon soaring through the sky with a winged jet pack. Mackie, by the way, is exceptionally charismatic.

Samuel L. Jackson gets more to do here than in past pictures, including an exhilarating car chase through the streets of Washington D.C. Even the use of technology has added to the cool factor with Fury driving an SUV with a heads-up display and automated driving system. There's also a face reveal that puts anything in Mission: Impossible to shame.

Make no mistake, Winter Soldier isn't a hollow series of explosions, there's a lot of heart and gravitas underneath all the CGI. Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have imbued the film with the gritty nature of a 70's political thriller. The casting of Robert Redford from All the President's Men and 3 Days of the Condor will certainly attest to that. The geeks have truly won when you have Robert Redford in a Marvel movie saying, "Hail Hydra." Hot button topics like the war on terror, the use of drones, government surveillance of its citizens, and Edward Snowden have inspired the crux of the plot.

In the face of all this turmoil stands the unwavering integrity of Steve Rogers. It's refreshing to see a protagonist who is so earnest and filmmakers who do not shy away from those traits. This is a stark contrast to Warner Bros' attempt to darken the image of the Big Blue Boy Scout, Superman. Though there's an added dimension of humor to Cap through his banter with Widow and Falcon, Chris Evans has truly grown into the role of the super-soldier. The most heartbreaking moment where Cap visits the bedside of an elderly Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and you discover that she has Alzheimer's. Evans and Atwell are excellent in the scene and the CG used to age Atwell is utterly convincing, light years ahead of the shoddy make-up in Prometheus or J. Edgar. At the same time, producers have not forgotten this is a comic book movie. The story takes a turn for the bizarre when Cap and Widow find a hidden chamber containing an archaic computer system housing the consciousness of Arnim Zola (Toby Jones). Thanks to a little voice modulation and a cartoonish accent by Jones, the scene becomes a distinctive method to dump exposition.

Without a doubt, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the best film rolled out by Marvel in the second phase of their slate. It could easily be considered one of the best overall, right alongside Iron Man and The Avengers.

Rating: **** (*****)

Homefront

Homefront - Dir. Gary Fleder (2013)

In 2006, Sylvester Stallone bid farewell to his most famous character in Rocky Balboa. The Italian Stallion donned the boxing gloves once more for a comeback match against a young upstart. In 2008, Stallone dusted the mothballs off another iconic character, the haunted Vietnam vet John Rambo. In the simply titled Rambo, Stallone rescued missionaries from the military junta in Burma. While Stallone has closed the door on Rocky, he left the possibility open for another Rambo adventure. At one point, he purchased the rights to Chuck Logan's novel Homefront as a possible vehicle to direct, star, and produce. There was even talk that it might be rewritten into a fifth Rambo flick. Instead, Homefront has become a vehicle for Stallone's fellow Expendable Jason Statham.

Statham is Phil Broker, an undercover DEA agent whose final mission ended in bloodshed and led to the arrest of Danny T (Chuck Zito), the leader of a drug running biker gang. Broker has decided to live the quiet life by moving to a small town in the Louisiana with his daughter Maddy (Izabela Vidovic). He's got horses, plenty of fresh air, and the pretty school teacher (Rachelle Lefevre) seems to take a liking to him. All that changes when Maddy gets into a scuffle with playground bully. This sets off a chain of disastrous events as the boy's drug-addled mother, Cassie (Kate Bosworth), demands retribution. Just so happens her brother, Gator Bodine (James Franco), is one bad dude. He cooks meth and everyone in town knows to stay away from him. When Gator learns of Broker's former line of work, he ropes in his girlfriend Sheryl (Winona Ryder) to set up a hit and get into Danny T's good graces.

Homefront doesn't off anything anyone hasn't seen before in a Jason Statham action movie. Although, there is one unintentionally funny scene in which the British bruiser tries to affect an American accent. Statham isn't afraid to unleash righteous fury when the bad guys push him around. However, he's not intentionally looking for trouble. You kind of wish he did.  A few scenes where Statham goes Buford Pusser on some sleazy swamp folk may have livened things up. There's just enough action in Homefront to keep your attention, just not enough to bring you to the edge of your seat. Director Gary Fleder, who previously helmed Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead and Runaway Jury, isn't known as an action director, but he handles the set pieces well, particularly one where Statham fights several henchmen with his hands zip tied behind his back. The script by Stallone is exactly the type of B-movie fare he and peers like Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme traded in during the 80's.

What does set Homefront apart is the bold decision to cast against type for the antagonists with the exception of Frank Grillo as a hired assassin. California surfer girl Kate Bosworth is turned into a weary looking meth addict while Winona Ryder struggles to convince as an opportunistic biker groupie. James Franco certainly would not have been an obvious choice to play the lead villain though he is the most interesting. Franco's eclectic tastes were on full display in 2013. He played a young Wizard of Oz in Oz: The Great and Powerful, appeared in a cameo as Hugh Hefner in Lovelace, directed and starred in the docudrama Interior. Leather Bar, and won acclaim for his outlandish performance in Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers. Franco doesn't ham it up as Gator. He does relish in being a baddie, but he's not completely amoral. Once the truly ruthless killers arrive, Gator discovers he's just a little fish in a swamp full of crocs.

Homefront isn't a wholly satisfying experience due to a cookie cutter script that was cobbled together after a binge watching Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad. Still, if your standards aren't too demanding, Homefront winds up being a fun and disposable action pic.

Rating: ** (*****)

Lay the Favorite

Lay the Favorite - Dir. Stephen Frears (2012)

Stephen Frears has had a long and diverse career as a director. He's helmed some winners (High Fidelity) and some losers (Mary Reilly). Frears has also directed two Best Picture nominees in Dangerous Liaisons and The Queen. So you can't help but feel that he and his cast are slumming with Lay the Favorite.

Rebecca Hall plays Beth, a beautiful free-spirit whose life is going nowhere fast. She's a stripper who makes house calls and the occupation doesn't exactly thrill her. On a whim, Beth decides to pack her bags for Las Vegas in order to become a cocktail waitress. Hey, dream big, right?

Much to her chagrin, Beth quickly learns that the waitress industry is unionized and she has no way in. Thanks to a pair of friendly neighborhood strippers, Beth gets a job taking bets for a gambler named Dink (Bruce Willis), whose operation gives odds on every major sport along with beauty pageants and spelling bees. Despite an utter lack of experience, Beth catches on quickly thanks to a winning personality and a knack for numbers. In the process, she finds herself attracted to Dink. However, his temperament runs hot and cold depending on his luck and he has a controlling wife in Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Beth rebounds into the arms of Jeremy (Joshua Jackson), a nice and normal journalist in New York City. Finding herself without any job prospects in the Big Apple, Beth falls into old habits by going to work for Dink's rival, Rosie (Vince Vaughn). She doesn't seem fazed that bookmaking is illegal outside of Nevada.

Lay the Favorite is based on the memoirs of Beth Raymer, who chronicled her journey from stripping to working operations in the Caribbean and Costa Rica where bookmaking is unregulated. In between, she tried her hand at amateur boxing, which is never mentioned in the movie. Raymer certainly led an interesting life, but you would never know it according to the fictionalized account. Lay the Favorite prefers to be a mildly amusing romp with a few romantic comedy tropes and a smidgeon of the con artist picture that Frears toyed with previously in The Grifters and Dirty Pretty Things.

One of the reasons Lay the Favorite fails to engage is a lack of intriguing and sympathetic characters. It's hard to root for Beth when she consistently makes monumentally foolish mistakes, especially when they threaten to drag others down with her. Rebecca Hall is a fantastic actress and looks gorgeous here as she sashays around the Vegas strip in cut-off jean shorts. She pulls off the ditzy routine well and her speech patterns are somewhere in between Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop. However, there's only so much Hall can do when the character is so thin. This is a case where Hall's boundless personality far exceeds the role. Her love story with Jeremy lacks any spark since he's an utterly bland romantic interest. Hall's scenes with Bruce Willis are of slightly more interest because the latter isn't simply sleepwalking through the movie. Willis brings a little of the energy that made him a star on Moonlighting.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is fun as Dink's overbearing wife though he eventually turns far too easily from harridan to kindly maternal figure. Laura Prepon of That 70's Show fame appears briefly as one of Beth's friends, although her look and bad southern accent may trick you into thinking she's Jamie Pressley Then, there's Vince Vaughn who is once again typecast as the fast-talking huckster and Corbin Bernsen in a throwaway cameo as Beth's father. If only the screenplay by D.V. DiVincentis were better. Frears has an A-list cast and gives them C-list material.

Lay the Favorite had the opportunity to be an enthralling exposé of the gambling world. Think Moneyball in Sin City. Instead, the movie puts it all on the line until the dice finally come up snake eyes. Nothing of note here other than Rebecca Hall's hotness and a brief topless scene by Prepon.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

End of Watch

End of Watch - Dir. David Ayer (2012)

You can trace the origins of the found footage genre back to the controversial horror film Cannibal Holocaust. However, it was The Blair Witch Project that really brought it to the forefront for modern audiences. With camera technology readily accessible along with the proliferation of the internet and viral videos, found footage has become more relevant today. Most importantly, they are relatively cheap to make. Recent years have seen a glut of found footage horror films that include The Devil Inside, The Last Exorcism, The Chernobyl Diaries, and Apollo 18. None of them were very well received though movie-goers liked REC and Paranormal Activity enough to warrant multiple sequels.

The subgenre was in danger of growing stale, but a few filmmakers ventured to apply found footage aesthetics to other genres. Project X was a raunchy teen comedy shot documentary style that was critically reviled, but wildly successful at the box office. Chronicle was a unique take on the superhero origin story from director Josh Trank, who wound up scoring the job of helming the Fantastic Four reboot for Fox.

This brings us to End of Watch, a cop drama set in the inner city of Los Angeles from writer/director David Ayer, who has made a career of gritty crime flicks set in L.A. He wrote Training Day, Dark Blue, and S.W.A.T., then went on to direct Harsh Times and Street Kings. Ayer does his best work with End of Watch, which is a more positive look at the LAPD than his earlier pictures. It follows two hotshot LAPD officers named Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Miguel Zavala (Michael Pena). Taylor is a former Marine who is earning his law degree on the side. As part of his course work, he is filming a documentary about his life as a police officer. This includes using tiny cameras pinned to his lapel and his partner's. Whereas Zavala is a family man, Taylor is happily single though he may have finally met "the one" in the perky Anna Kendrick.

End of Watch opens with a wild pursuit recorded by a dashboard camera that ends in a justified shooting. From there, we watch as Taylor and Zavala rescue kids from a burning house and bust a perpetrator carrying a ton of cash and a jewel encrusted AK-47. Our protagonists even earn the respect of a gang member named Tre (Cle Sloan) after he gets into a brawl with Zavala. After discovering a house full of rotting body parts, Taylor and Zavala unwittingly earn the wrath of a ruthless Mexican drug cartel pushing its way into Los Angeles.

End of Watch doesn't stay firmly within the realm of found footage. While there are the usual shaky cam shots, many of the scenes are shot and edited conventionally. Still, End of Watch succeeds in placing the audience intimately alongside the officers. It's as if we were right there for the ride. Ayer's willingness to shoot tightly and closely gives the action sequences an immediacy and tension not found in movies with larger budgets. Ayer also throws in some unique shots such as one in which a camera has been mounted on Taylor's shotgun barrel.

Shootouts are all well and good, but Ayer ensures that we care about the characters with the camaraderie of Taylor and Zavala at the forefront. Gyllenhaal and Pena give strong performances and their banter is a highlight. Though the focus is on them, their relationships with their families and fellow cops aren't short changed. Taylor and Zavala have their run-ins with an embittered beat cop (David Harbour) and a pair of female officers (Cody Horn & America Ferrera) who aren't impressed by their cocky attitudes.

End of Watch falters when it shifts focus from Taylor and Zavala to the Latino gangbangers gunning for them. In the YouTube era, it makes sense that the criminals would be bold enough to record their illegal activities. Still, their scenes are less interesting because they are portrayed in stereotypical and over-the-top manner.

End of Watch is a gripping police drama that rises above genre conventions and the limitations of found footage.

Rating: *** (*****)

The Grey

The Grey - Dir. Joe Carnahan (2012)

Once more into the fray.
Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
Live and die on this day.
Live and die on this day.

The early part of the year is generally the season for movie goers to catch up on all the best picture nominees as well as a dumping ground for forgettable action flicks and rom-coms. There's a new tradition now with Liam Neeson led action movies being released almost on a yearly basis. There was Taken in 2009 and Unknown in 2011. 2012 follows suit with The Grey with Neeson reunited with Joe Carnahan, the director of The A-Team. The script is based on the short story, Ghost Walker, by Ian MacKenzie Jeffers, who also penned the awful revenge thriller Death Sentence. Given the participants, I would have been satisfied with an hour and a half of Liam Neeson punching the fuck out of wolves. Indeed, the money shot of the trailer is Neeson duct taping a knife and broken miniature bottles to his hands as he prepares to dive into battle. Imagine my surprise to find The Grey is far more philosophical and contemplative than one would expect from Joe Carnahan.

Neeson stars as John Ottway, a sharpshooter stationed at an oil pumping station in the remote Arctic. He protects the workers from the wolves living in the surrounding wilds. It's not exactly a noble profession as the station employees are mostly reprobates and desperate men. As Ottway describes them, they are "unfit for mankind." Memories of his late-wife (Anne Openshaw) are the only things keeping him going.

A plane ride to Anchorage turns to disaster when the aircraft is caught in a blizzard and crashes into a snowy wasteland. Ottway assumes leadership of a handful of survivors that include the hotheaded ex-con Diaz (Frank Grillo), the devout family man Talget (an unrecognizable Dermot Mulroney), and the reserved Hendrick (Dallas Roberts). Their journey back to civilization is endangered not only by the harsh elements, but by a pack of vicious wolves. These wolves are stalking the survivors not for food, but for vengeance as they are trespassing on their territory.

What differentiates The Grey from the winter season's cinematic detritus is the existential tone as it deals with faith in the face of a cruel world. There's an overriding sense of the impermanence of mankind, who will always be at the mercy of Mother Nature. These are certainly heady subjects for what Open Road Films has marketed as a standard action movie.

The Grey does offer a visceral experience as the deaths can occur suddenly and without warning. The wolves themselves are like unrelenting creatures from a horror film. One shot features the protagonists face to face with the pack as their eyes glow a stark white against the jet black night sky. Another sequence sees the survivors, forced to trudge through deep snow, helplessly watch as wolves tear apart their friend. Amidst all the brutally, some of the deaths are handled with emotional gravitas. The first one occurs when one man is found in the wreckage bleeding to death. Ottway doesn't bother to comfort him or mince words, he tells the man in a matter-of-fact manner that he's dying and nothing can be done. Despite the survivors being a collection of stock characters, it hits hard when one of them goes.

Liam Neeson has had a long career as a respectable actor, but it's only recently that he's become a top shelf action hero. With his booming voice and imposing 6'4 stature, he definitely has the credibility. As Ottway, Neeson gives a rich performance that's tinged with an unshakeable sadness. It's obvious this was something of a therapeutic role allowing Neeson to work through issues following the death of his wife Natasha Richardson in 2009. There's talk The Grey may be re-released for a run during awards season. Frank Grillo, previously seen as the trainer in Warrior, gives an excellent performance here and is the centerpiece for one of the film's most powerful scenes.

The Grey represents Joe Carnahan's best work, even better than his breakout film, Narc. His direction is still stylish, but almost understated, refraining from his usually overly kinetic tricks. The plane crash is one of the most realistic and harrowing crashes committed to film. After that, we see Neeson lying peacefully next to his wife and underneath a white sheet only for her to be ripped away as he awakens in a snow drift.

The Grey is one of the first great films of 2012, a gut wrenching tale of survival in the vein of Jack London. The ways in which it deals with manhood, spirituality, and the inevitability of death would make Hemingway proud.

Rating: *** (*****)

If you want to read my spoilerific thoughts on the ending, click on the comments section.

Warrior

Warrior - Dir. Gavin O'Connor (2011)

Gavin O'Connor delved into family dysfunction with his previous picture, the crime drama Pride and Glory. Before that, he directed 2004's Miracle, a rousing underdog story about the USA's Olympic hockey team and their victory over the heavily-favored Russians. In Warrior, O'Connor and co-writers Anthony Tambakis and Cliff Dorfman combine both themes for a tear jerking story capitalizing on the rise in popularity of MMA and the current economic crisis.

Warrior takes the classic Rocky formula and splits it two ways. The protagonists are estranged brothers, Brendan (Joel Edgerton) and Tommy (Tom Hardy), who were raised by a drunken and abusive father in Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte). The rift between siblings began when Tommy finally convinced their mother to leave with him for California where she later succumbed to cancer. Brendan chose to stay behind and marry his high school sweetheart, Tess (Jennifer Morrison), with whom he has two beautiful daughters.

Fourteen years later, Tommy returns to the family home in Pittsburgh to find his father is now a recovering alcoholic closing in on a thousand days of sobriety and full of regret. Tommy has been overseas after a tour in the Middle East with the Marines and clearly traumatized about his combat experiences. While working out at a local gym, he becomes a YouTube sensation after pulverizing one of the top welterweight fights in the country during a sparring match. Tommy, an undefeated amateur wrestler in his youth, asks his father to train him once again, but makes it clear there will be no personal connection between the two.

Meanwhile, Brendan has become a high school physics teacher who is in desperate need of money after falling behind on his mortgage. He gets an old friend, Frank Campana (Frank Grillo), to train him for an Atlantic City tournament known as Sparta, where the grand prize is $5 million. Tommy too has entered the contest for his own reason.

Anyone with a firm grasp of basic Hollywood story structure will see where the film is going from the opening minutes. Tess doesn't want her husband becoming a fighter again nor does she wish to see any of his fights. Yet, she will inevitably appear in the front row to support Brendan at a climactic moment. It also shouldn't be much of a spoiler (especially since it's in the trailer) that the brothers will meet in the tournament finals to finally settle the score inside the caged octagon. O'Connor keeps both Brendan and Tommy on an even keel so that the audience's sympathy isn't strongly in favor of one or the other. While the moment is played as a triumphant victory, there is an underlying sense of tragedy that the siblings can only solve their problems by beating the crap out of each other.

There's nothing subtle about Warrior. The movie hammers the viewer with soap opera subplots like a fighter reins down fists on a prone opponent caught in a rear mount. There's Paddy's attempt to remain sober and reconnect with Tommy and Brendan, who was ignored due to the younger's superior athletic achievements. In a ham-fisted attempt at allegory, Paddy listens to Moby Dick on tape with his own white whale being the forgiveness of his sons. Toss in Tommy's need to overcome his harsh life and Brendan's efforts to provide for his family. Oh, and Brendan's youngest daughter has had health problems which required extensive medical attention and insurmountable hospital bills. Each man's fighting style mirrors their own inner turmoil. Tommy is blunt force trauma, destroying his opponents and leaving the ring without fanfare before the official decision is even read. Brendan, on the other hand, takes a great deal of punishment before staging his comeback. O'Connor makes sure no stone is unturned when it comes to milking every conceivable emotion. At an almost inexcusable two hours and twenty minutes, he gets plenty of opportunity to do so.

Warrior mainly succeeds because of its talented ensemble. Don't expect minimalistic performances here, this is acting that draws attention to itself. However, it works hand in hand with the tone O'Connor goes for, that of a testosterone fueled weepie. It's hard to imagine that the two working class boys at the center of the film are played by an Aussie and a Brit. Edgerton does a solid job, but he's outshined by the showier performances by Nick Nolte and Tom Hardy. Nolte is perfectly cast as the world weary burnout with an unshakeable sadness about him. Hardy has risen to a whole new level as an actor following brilliant turns in Nicholas Winding Refn's Bronson and Christopher Nolan's Inception. Here, Hardy plays a brooding time bomb of seething frustration and hostility. His portrayal of Tommy is reminiscent of a young Marlon Brando and his iconic role in On the Waterfront.

The obligatory montage training sequences are present in Warrior though they are sadly not set to 1980's power ballads.

Warrior drifts too frequently into schmaltzy territory and is about twenty minutes too long. Still, it is an effective melodrama for men. This is one of those movies where it's okay for a guy to cry.

Rating: *** (*****)