Obsequiousmelon learned the way of the Warrior.

Name of the Film:  The Warriors 

Starring:  Michael Beck, James Remar and Dorsey Wright   

The Warriors are a street gang from Coney Island.  They are summoned along with all the other gangs to a meeting held by enigmatic leader Cyrus.  Cyrus has a plan to unite the gangs and take over New York but when the police arrive and Cyrus is shot, the Warriors are blamed and find themselves trying to get home with every cop and gang member searching for them.

There are many films that have the label cult favourite but this one truly earns its title.  Famous for allegedly insighting gang violence at its screenings it has had a troubled past with distribution problems and a reputation for being more violent than it really is.

But is it any good?

Well yes, yes it is.  The movie is clearly a cheap production using unknown (at the time) young actors to carry a film that could have been purely exploitative.

The actors generally carry their parts off well even if their roles are fairly bland.  Each of them are the tough talking disenchanted street trash stereotype.  The stand out though is James Remar who has had a solid film and television career ever since (most recently seen as Dexter’s dad Harry on the show Dexter.)

Having said that they are fairly straightforward characters, but we do still have empathy for them and their plight and this is mainly down to the script which uses realistic dialogue and straightforward situations to make life easy for the actors.

Basically it’s the story of the Odyssey complete with sirens, but instead of greek soldiers we have New York street gangs and the whole thing works well.  If I have one complaint it is that the ending is a little too neat but I wont spoil it for you, it’s only a minor complaint and having a non-challenging hollywood ending is fine once in a while if only because it is, tonally speaking, in synch with the rest of the story.

Its good, very good if a little cheap here and there.  I can fully understand why so many of my friends love it.  But for me it is just a good film.  I enjoyed it and I will watch it every time it is on HBO but I probably wont buy it.

  

Did I enjoy the film?  Yes

Would I recommend it to my friends?   Well technically my friends recommended it to me. 

Will I buy it on DVD/Blu Ray?  Hmmmmm, maybe.

If it was a mate would I let it date my Sister?  Probably not, its fun but not quite awesome enough.