MOVIE REVIEWS: WARRIOR

Director Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior is depending on positive word-of-mouth for ticket sales, and if reviews are any indication, the mixed-martial-arts movie will get it. They are overwhelmingly positive. Take Roger Ebert’s in the Chicago Sun-Times, for example. “This is a rare fight movie in which we don’t want to see either fighter lose,” he writes. “That brings such complexity to the final showdown that hardly anything could top it — but something does, and Warrior earns it.” Then there’s this comment from A.O. Scott in the New York Times: “Warrior possesses surprising poetry and finesse. Which is not to say that it is subtle. The director’s impressive technique — and all the grace and discipline of his excellent, hard-working cast — is mustered with a single, unambiguous goal in mind. This movie wants to knock you out. It will.” And these are the concluding words of Bruce DeMara’s review in the Toronto Star: “Warrior has real emotional resonance, vivid, finely crafted performances and a story that will seize you from its opening moments. Action movies are never this good. This is the film that will win O’Connor high praise and elevate him into the echelon of directors and storytellers whose work should not be missed.” A handful of critics demur, including Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times who calls the movie “too much of a good thing.” He gives the film left-handed approval by remarking that “it shows promise,” but, Turan maintains, by the time it’s over, “it’s hard not to feel pummeled yourself.” And Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe dismisses it as “bench-press melodrama … a factory item.”