Maybe I wasn’t the best person to send to Warrior. I have a photo of Tom Hardy, naked in the shower, as my computer screen saver. Coworkers ask who it is, and I tell them “my boyfriend.” I never thought I’d be a crazyhead—a celebrity stalker freak you read about in trash tabloids—but with him, I can’t help it. He gives me a girl boner. The cream jeans. I want him to put a sausage in my calzone.
It started with Bronson—the 2008 bio-drama based on Britain’s “most notorious prisoner,” Michael “Charles Bronson” Peterson, whose violent life behind bars earned him lifetimes in solitary confinement. It’s got scene after scene of Hardy, naked, bare-knuckle boxing his way through packs of prison guards. It’s all about fists and fury, and Hardy’s brutally large trapezius muscles.
Ever since Bronson, I have been crazyheaded with Netflix. I rent anything with Hardy’s name attached. By the time I got to Wuthering Heights, based on ye old as hell novel by Emily Brontë, it hit me. Tom Hardy can act. He’s not just giant feather-pillow lips resting atop those oversized trapezii. He’s a really good actor.
In Warrior, Hardy is back in fists-and-
fury mode. He’s the classic tough guy, this time bare-knuckling in a mixed martial arts ring, and ultimately fighting his own brother. Warrior‘s plot is nothing to hand out little gold statues for; in fact, it’s kinda corny-predictable. What makes the ride worth taking is: (1) The fight scenes are perfectly choreographed (people cheered in the theater like they were watching a real match), and (2) all of the actors can act. Aussie man-hunk Joel Edgerton is believable as the father who fights to save his family, Nick Nolte as the alcoholic father made me cry, and Hardy (trapezii bigger than EVER before) totally nails his protagonist brute character—and he makes him human. Being human is a fight I feel like Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky never won. I daresay Warrior might even kick Rocky‘s ass. 
Bold Statement. The first Rocky was a decent flick. And Rock was very human in a south philly in the 70’s kind of way. Im looking forward to Warrior this weekend.
I think that, sometimes, people say things about Rocky: The Film that they really mean to apply to Rocky: The Franchise).
That said, I think one can fairly assert that Hardy and Nolte are both more nuanced actors than Stallone (who, I should note, is capable of good work). I’m not as familiar with Edgerton, but I like what I’m seeing so far.
I fully admit I’m looking forward to this one. Sometimes a big, square, corny sports epic, well-shot and well-acted, is precisely what I need to shake me out of a place of existential stasis.
He kind of scares me. He looks like a walking testosterone time-bomb transplanted from the prehistoric African savanna. Somebody needs to give him some oestrogen supplements. But, then, I’ve always found big, ol’, knuckle-dragging cavemen obnoxious and tiresome.
#2 the Joel Edgerton must-see is Austrailian gangster flick
Animal Kingdom: http://bit.ly/d78kMI
And though he looks like a knuckle dragger, Tom Hardy publicly admitted to switching teams as a teenager: http://bit.ly/bvtXQZ
But back to knuckle dragging though, this photo book is full of pretty testosterone’arriffic photos: http://bit.ly/q9DerR
@3 – I actually think there’s little in the world sexier than a team-switching, poetry-savvy knuckle-dragger. My wife, luckily, feels the same way ;)).
@5 – Thanks for the tip. It’s officially on my queue. Didn’t someone get an Oscar nod for that?
Sorry, Kelly; the tip for which I was thanking you was @4, not @5.
Holy shit I cant believe the Stranger, if this role was played by vinnie D or The Rock it’d be ran through the meat grinder as the POS that it actually is. Dont try to sell me on the acting, its about 2 brothers fucking fighting each other in an MMA tourney? And I like fighting of all types but WTF, this is the biggest suck up to the Kid Rock/fast n furious/’Mercia crowd this year. K I’m out you’all can go jerk off to your imaginary boy toys now
you’re all wrong. KELLY O IS RIGHT.!!!!!!
@ 4 Animal Kingdom is a must see for EVERYBODY! how would you like that lady to be your mum?
the way she said, SWEETHEART, was the creepiest thing on film. that lady would give freddy krugger nightmares.