Warrior (2011)

A high school physics teacher enters the biggest fight tournament on the planet, and so does the brother he hasn’t spoken to in years. That’s the plot, and it’s pure sports movie fantasy. Don’t care. Warrior earns every ounce of its cheese. Tom Hardy plays Tommy like a wrecking ball in a gray hoodie, barely talking, walking out of the cage before the ref even finishes. Joel Edgerton makes Brendan the guy you actually want to win, a dad fighting for his mortgage. And Nick Nolte as their father, trying to stay sober and getting nothing back, quietly wrecks you in every scene. The tournament rounds blur together a bit, and at 140 minutes it could lose a training montage. Opening crowds gave it an A CinemaScore, and it still made just $13.7 million domestic, which is the real crime here. An 8.4 because it’s a fight movie that’s really about a family that can’t say sorry. $261 says you text a sibling you haven’t talked to in a while before the credits finish.

What works: Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton are great in opposite ways, and Nick Nolte gives the most heartbreaking performance in the movie.

What doesn’t: The tournament setup runs on pure coincidence, the middle rounds blur together, and the runtime could lose a montage or two.

Who it’s for: Anyone who cried at Rocky, and people who think they don’t like fight movies but do like big, messy family dramas.