Review of The Warriors (1979) by Bitter E — 16 Mar 2011

If there's one lesson I've learned over and over again it's that nothing can ever live up to it's hype. Walter Hill's The Warriors is a film I've heard about for years (okay, months) and I was genuinely enthused when I uncovered it one day and seconds later heard the DVD player whiz to life as that really crappy late 70's/early 80's synthesized music sent my eardrums into harmonic ecstasy. It wasn't even until about half-way through that the faults of the movie crept up on me like a pedophile in the candy store and the bitterness of my namesake bubbled forth.

Warriors started off strong with a solid premise that grabbed me by the testicles and pulled me in like a zealous, inexperienced school girl who exists solely in my imagination. All the gangs of New York are meeting peacefully for the first time to hear a speech given by Cyrus, the leader of the most powerful gang, who pushes them to rise up and take over the city. At this rally (oddly reminiscent of a weekend at Comic-Con) Cyrus is assassinated and the blame is firmly planted on the eponymous Warrior gang who must now escape back to their native Coney Island before being overrun by an angry, easily manipulated mob. With the promise of good old fashioned gang violence we haven't seen since West Side Story neutered the ruffians and turned them all into prissy, finger-snapping drama queens, we see our nine heroes battle their way out and slowly get picked off one by one on their voyage home (presumably to save humpback whales--increasingly esoteric nerd references). "Who will survive?" the movie asks-the obvious answer being the best characterized ones, of course.

But it was at this point I was wrong, as I quickly realized none of them were characterized very well except for perhaps two: the leader Swan (Michael Beck) and the rebel Ajax (James Remar) who are only brought to my attention because of their bickering back and forth like an old married couple discussing their favorite grandchildren and when the world went to shit. There's also a prostitute in there somewhere whose desire to be taken seriously is drastically undercut by her see-through shirt and entrancingly dark nipples. Still, I've seen enough Star Trek episodes to be desensitized by the deaths of faceless red-shirts I'm supposed to give a f--- about and their mediocre acting abilities, so I overlooked these faults--for a while. Even when the completely gratuitous comic strip transitions frequently appear and show us an image of Swan walking alone in the park with a caption reading "Swan, now alone..." break up the action, I continued to follow it loyally. After all, there were enough face-painted baseball, mime, and roller-skating gangs popping up often enough that I could forget about not knowing anyone's name and having to Wikipedia them later. Truthfully, it wasn't until the ending that I realized that the scenario I had built up in my head about a lone gang staving off an army of thousands was significantly more interesting than the journey of eight, sex-starved teenagers wandering through the night punctuated by the occasional, unimpressive fight scene. The movie doesn't even try to wrap up many of the glaring loose ends such as what happened to all the Warriors who weren't killed but captured over the 90 minute run.

The Warriors is a film with an excellent build-up that ultimately leaves off with an unsatisfactory climax much like that aforementioned fantasy. The originality in the feel and design of the gangs is what gives this movie its appeal but with just samey gang fight after samey gang fight after samey gang fight and interchangeable characters this originality wears off quickly with all the subtlety and predictability of a bad Zero Punctuation/Nostalgia Critic rip-off. I'm the Bitter Enthusiast, I rip it apart so you don't have to.