A couple of weekends ago my dad asked if I wanted to watch the fight — emphasis on the singular tense of ‘fight’ — and I said yes. Little did I know I said yes to watching the entire UFC 257 event, all 11 fights in all of their glory. The night ended with a serious upset, at least in my house, after Dustin Poirier defeated Conor McGregor in what was supposed to be “a total lock,” according to my brothers. 

Admittedly, after what I’m pretty sure was four hours, I really appreciated the hype of mixed martial arts. So, what else was there to do other than rewatch the 2011 film, Warrior, one of my all-time favorites. 

The plot of Warrior follows two estranged brothers and their recovering alcoholic father who confront the broken foundation of their family at Sparta, the biggest MMA tournament of the year. Tommy, played by Tom Hardy, was a marine but comes home after a devastating event that leaves him traumatized. In an attempt to find himself again, he asks his dad (played by Nick Nolte), who was a wrestling coach in past years, to be his trainer for Sparta. However, when Tommy’s older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) weasels his way into the highly competitive tournament, a reunion is forced upon the three. 

Director Gavin O’Connor is extremely strategic with his filming choices during the fighting scenes, keeping them separate from cliche fighting scenes with exaggerated sound effects and single punch knockouts. 

All three leading actors do a phenomenal job at embodying the pain their individual character lives with, making the entire movie all the more heart-wrenching. Nolte in particular, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, manages to gain the viewer’s sympathy rather easily despite the trauma he caused his boys.

This movie definitely isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but if you’re looking for a tearjerker, this is for you. If you also appreciate the musical components of movies, this soundtrack deserves an honorable mention in my opinion.

Earlier in this piece, I said that I appreciated MMA, but that does not mean I necessarily love watching the gruesome aspects of a fight. However, the movie solely features instrumental music by Mark Isham, with the exception of About Today by The National, which turns the fighting into an art that you can’t help but respect. 

Available to stream on Amazon Prime and Hulu.