Mark Simpson Reviews Warrior

Mark Simpson, one of our favorite writers here at OUT, reviews the movie Warrior which premiered last month:

Middlesbrough, Teeside, one of the last steel-making towns in the UK or in fact one of the last places in the UK where they still make anything, is probably the right place to go and see, as I did last week, Warrior, the recently-released, much-hyped MMA Rocky remake set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Warrior is essentially a bromantic MMA Rocky. This time there are two Rockies: Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, playing (actual) brothers forced to fight one another. Both Rockies are considerably easier on the eye and ear than Sylvester Stallone ever was.

The cinema in 'Boro was (half) full of groups of young, mostly working class men, several of them even more worked-out than the stars of the movie - but in contrast to the resolutely 'timeless' grainy Hollywood faux butchery of Warrior that often looked as if it were set in an MMA version of the 1970s, they were fake-baked, shaven-chested, sexily dressed and very much Twenty First Century tarty. (The North East of England is after all home to Geordie Shore the UK version of Jersey Shore)

Of course, not everything about the film is trying to be timeless. I assume the young men had been drawn, like me, by the poster and trailer for the movie featuring naked, hulking Hardy and a ripped Edgerton eyeballing each other, and the promise of a very sweaty, if incestuous porno climax. (Or, as the promotional copy has it: '...the two brothers must finally confront each other and the forces that pulled them apart, facing off in the most soaring, soul stirring, and unforgettable climax that must be seen to be believed.')

Like all trailers, of course, it lied. Unlike Captain America the deceit wasn't that the trailer provided you with the only tits in the movie--for free. There were oodles of shots of Hardy and Edgerton's tits and abs. In fact, toplessness was the default setting of Warrior, and, for much of the movie, Hardy's intricate tattoos were the nearest thing he had to a shirt. No, it lied about the spornographic climax. But more of that whinge later.

There were though plenty of homoerotics. It's a movie about brawny male love--because they're beating the crap out of one another, it can afford to be sentimental and tender, not to mention physical in a way that most "bromances" (essentially a middle-class version of the buddy movie) can't. It's about two blue-collar brothers' twisted, jilted love for one another. About an alcoholic, abusive father's love for his angry, bitter sons (who of course, love him really). About the love between a coach and his eager charge. And the love between comrades/warriors.

And also about the hero-erotic love that so many straight men have for MMA fighters.

For the full review, head over to Marks blog at MarkSimpson.com.