The Warriors (1979)


It is strange that a director like Walter Hill, known for a number of cult films as well as some true Hollywood hits, really has no particular style as a director.  That isn't to say his best movies aren't dripping with style, but he moves from one project to another letting the story play out or the actors do their things.  Many of his films have a grittiness to them, and his best ones, like The Warriors, Streets of Fire and 48 Hrs. all seem to take place largely at night.  

While 48 Hrs. may be Hill's most financially successful film, The Warriors is the one that established him as a cult movie hero.  Based on a book from 1965 written by Sol Yurick, as well as portions of The Odyssey and Anabasis, the latter about Greek mercenaries trapped behind the lines in Persia trying to make it back home against all odds.  At its heart is a rather simple chase story, but Hill and cinematographer Andrew Laszlo present nighttime New York as a deserted wasteland ruled by all sorts of fanciful gangs.  It is in no way a representation of true gang culture, but rather a comic book version, and it somehow works.

The Warriors are a gang from Coney Island.  Their leader Cleon (Dorsey Wright) takes his core members to a park in the Bronx where Cyrus (Roger Hill), leader of the Riffs, is proposing widening a current truce into a unification of all the gangs in the boroughs.  His speech is cut short when Luther (David Patrick Kelly), the leader of the Rogues, shoots and kills Cyrus.  After realizing that one of the Warriors witnessed the shooting Luther blames it on Cleon, who is immediately mobbed.  The remaining members led by Swan (Michael Beck) flee the scene and begin to make the journey back to Coney Island.

They don't know they are being targeted for Cyrus's death as the Riffs, the largest gang in New York and now led by Masai (Dennis Gregory), have put out the word to bring them in dead or alive.  With Luther and the Rogues pursuing them to keep their part in the murder secret, along with every other gang gunning for them as well as the police in hot pursuit, the group is eventually separated and tries to make it to Union Station to regroup.  Swan also has someone else in tow - Mercy (Deborah Van Valkenburgh), a former girlfriend of the Orphans, a smaller gang, and he must decide if she is worth the trouble to bring back with him.  

While it doesn't try to drive home the Greek stories as much as O Brother Where Art Thou, there are some obvious allusions thrown in.  A female gang called the Lizzies, which draw Warriors Snow (Brian Tyler), Vermin (Terry Michos) and Rembrandt (Marcelino Sanchez) away from Union Station, are obviously intended to be a version of the mythical Sirens who lure sailors to their deaths.  Ajax (James Remar), who repeatedly challenges Swan for leadership after Cleon's death and is the most willing to fight, is named after a famous warrior from Greek mythology who was also known for his great strength and quick temper. 

The rival gangs add flavor to the mix, with most having a theme about them.  The Baseball Furies, with their uniforms and painted faces, are the most memorable, while the Riffs pretty much behave as an organized army and the Warriors themselves follow a sort of tribal code.  The fight scenes are also some of the most exciting on film up to that time, with some truly great set pieces with the Furies and the Punks, as well as an anticlimactic final confrontation with the Rogues. 

The Warriors deserves its reputation, even if some criticism of it glorifying gang culture - something the source novel set out not to do - might be valid.  Still, even though there were reports of violence when some gangs went to see the movie, and both the crew and cast faced harassment while making it, it's not exactly a recruitment movie.  If Hill is saying anything in the film it is about how great movements are often toppled by random acts of violence before they truly get going, and even though Luther says he did it just because there are hints that someone who didn't like the idea of a hundred thousand gang members united for one purpose put him up to it. 

The only other movie that Hill did in a similar style to The Warriors was Streets of Fire, and the latter's retro-futuristic style - this time set in an unnamed city infested with crime and flamboyant gangs - seems like it could have been a spiritual sequel to The Warriors, and if it had been allowed to play out as the trilogy Hill envisioned it may have just established him as the king of comic book style gang films.  The Warriors still stands out as one of the brightest points of his career.

The Warriors (1979)
Time: 93 minutes
Starring: Michael Beck, James Remar, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, David Patrick Kelly
Director: Walter Hill

 

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