The Warriors (The Ultimate Director's Cut)

DId not enjoy the directors cut. One of my favorite movies, but the directors cut ruined it for me. Get the ORIGINAL.

The Warriors (Walter Hill, 1979)

When I was a kid growing up in the seventies, there were three movies that defined all that was cool. Phantasm was (and still is) the essence of horror. Death Race 2000 was the epitome of the action comedy. And The Warriors was a textbook on how to make a darker action film. I watched it a few nights ago for the first time in twenty years or thereabouts, and while as an adult it's easier to see some of the shortcomings Walter Hill would develop as he gained experience, there's still no denying that The Warriors is, in fact, all that and a bag of chips.

This is not the New York City you know. The gangs to be found in Walter Hill's epic chase flick would probably be stomped into the ground in five seconds flat. All of them are far too fashion-conscious to actually survive on the streets. But in the context of the film, they look cool, and that's what counts. Once you have seen the Furies in action, you will never forget them-- Yankee uniforms, baseball bats, and very strangely painted faces. The Warriors themselves, reflecting upon seventies fashion from the safe distance of the next century, are almost inviting themselves to be beaten to a pulp; leather vests with no shirts? Oh, please. But somehow, it still works.

The plot: Cyrus (Roger Hill), the leader of the Riffs, the city's largest gang, calls a meeting at which nine representatives from each of the city's gangs will show up. The Warriors, from Coney Island, are one of those gangs. During the meeting, during which Cyrus preaches banding together and taking the city for their own, he is shot and killed by Luther (Dreamscape's David Patrick Kelly), one of the Rogues, who in the confusion is able to lay the blame at the feet of Cleon (Dorsey Wright), the Warriors' lead delegate. With the shooting, the all-city gang truce is off, leaving the eight remaining Warriors to make it all the way back across the five boroughs to their home turf. They have to cross the territory of seemingly every other gang in the city to do so, and to make matters worse, the Riffs are also looking for them. Just to add to the fun, there's tension in the ranks between Swan, the Warriors' warleader (Michael Beck), and an upstart, Ajax (James Remar), who believes he should be next in line to lead the gang to glorious times.

Yeah, it's pretty cheesy. But Hill pretties it up a good deal, and to be fair, when he's on his game, he's a great action film director. And Hill was certainly on his game here. Even the lulls in the action are fraught with tension, though one wonders on occasion whether they should be. Still, for all that, it's a very fun movie, and it does what it's supposed to do-- entertain the viewer for ninety minutes and change. How much more do you really need from an action film? ****

I had been hearing about The Warriors for years, but never had the opportunity to watch it. Once it hit Blu-ray, I finally put it in my rental queue to see what all the fuss was about. After my initial viewing, I just had to order a copy of my own immediately. I definitely know why this film is regarded as the cult classic as it is. Great characters and a simple, yet engaging story. A gang, wrongly accused of a crime, must fight ther way back home. No fancy effects, no silly one-liners. Just a group of guys going through a brutal fight to get to where they need to be. And visually? I dont know what the original DVD looked like, as Blu-ray is my only reference. But honestly, if you hadn't told me it was an older film, I would have guessed it was filmed this year, along with a really good costume design team. Another fine example of what a great new way to enjoy movies the Blu-ray format provides.

This "Ultimate Director's Cut" of "The Warriors" unashamedly emphasizes the comic book nature of the film.

Director Walter Hill goes out on a limb to create an alternative reality of gang culture - and succeeds brilliantly.

"The Warriors" is somewhat influenced by Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" in styling but has a much lighter tone.

Acted with conviction by a large cast (no-one plays a weasally villain better than David Patrick Kelly), "The Warriors" makes brilliant use of New York street and subway locations.

Still holds up well after all these years because it stands outside contemporary concerns to explore the timeless themes of survival against the odds and ultimate redemption.

Excellent featurettes on the making of the film are included on this DVD.

As a big fan of this movie, I was stoked about it being re-released, along with the game, in a new Director's Cut version. First, the good. The Warriors is simply a great movie with a 70's New York vibe like no other. The performances are solid, the action is fast paced, and during the run back to Coney Island you really get a sense of fight AND flight.
Now, the bad. Although for the most part, I liked the idea of the comic book angle. After all, some of the gangs in The Warriors are straight out of the comic book genre. However, in one particular scene, they took it too far and edited one of the most powerful scenes in the movie. As four members of The Warriors escape the police from a subway station and race to the streets, they are confronted by The Baseball Furies. In the original version, they get to the streets, Ajax shouts "Where are they?!" in reference to the other members of The Warriors they were just with, and immediately after he says this, his eyes turn stone cold as he and the others spot The Baseball Furies, standing in the distance, waiting for The Warriors, wielding their weapon of choice, the baseball bat. So it goes from intense, to a fierce intense scene of a never ending battle. In the Director's Cut, this scene is chopped up and all the intensity of this pivotal scene goes down the toilet when Ajax says "Where are they?!", he dissolved into a comic book sketching, and they cut to another scene. This was one of, if not the, best scenes in the movie and they butchered it. The movie itself is still great, but I'll never, ever understand why they did that with that particular scene.