The characters are honest and true, the fight sequences are brutal and raw, while the central themes being delivered in the denouement pack a major emotional wallop.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 27, 2012

Its three leads certainly deserve consideration for their artfulness in being able to infuse it with intimations of quality.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 26, 2011

Grainy, hand-held cinematography can't lend authenticity to the forced emotion.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 25, 2011

Carries you along despite its obvious faults and pretensions

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 23, 2011

Has to conform to the lunkhead straitjacket of the tournament format: one dufus pounding another in extreme close-up for what seems like an eternity.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 22, 2011

Hardy's physicality here is something to behold: you wonder how many personal trainers he worked his way through to get those neck muscles.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 22, 2011

Sickly sentimental, but the barnstorming fight scenes will leave you counting stars.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 22, 2011

This doesn't pack a punch like 'The Fighter' - but it's still a must for grapple fans.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 21, 2011

The movie is so skillfully made, and the performances are so convincingly real (Hardy is sensational), that, as it reaches its cathartic, winning finish, it achieves a surprising compassion and honesty.

| Sep 19, 2011

Warrior ends up feeling a lot bigger than you expect it to.

| Sep 16, 2011

It's too corny to live. But the picture is a slam dunk. I mean a ground-and-pound double-leg takedown. It's really gripping.

| Sep 11, 2011

Warrior's three principle characterizations are compelling - Nolte in particular gives a tempered performance as the shambling, sad-eyed wreck of a dad - but not enough to mask the film's lesser elements.

| Sep 10, 2011

The beats are familiar, the stakes are high, the fights are brutal, and the rewards are just.

| Sep 9, 2011

O'Connor films the fight scenes, and the fight training scenes leading up to them, with the requisite oomph.

| Original Score: B- | Sep 9, 2011

For some viewers [it] will be a knockout, a movie that comes on strong, like Tommy … For me, it came on more like Brendan … in the end wrangling me to the ground.

| Original Score: B- | Sep 9, 2011

For all the contemporary references, it's essentially a spin on the story of Cain and Abel, which may be the reason it feels timeless.

| Sep 9, 2011

It's also a fight movie that knows all the fight movie cliches and doesn't shy away from embracing them wholeheartedly. But it hits its marks and hits them well, and feels fresh even as it traffics so deeply in the familiar.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 9, 2011

Warrior is a weirdly affecting hybrid, a 100-proof melodrama that's two-thirds Sylvester Stallone and one-third Eugene O'Neill. Think Rocky's Long Day's Journey into Night.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 9, 2011

Subtle it ain't.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 9, 2011

Right up until a poorly chosen ending, I was caught up in every twist and turn.

| Original Score: B | Sep 9, 2011