Hitting, butting, kicking, tripping and slamming are all part of the game, and I may be naive, but it all looks real to me. I never quite understand how any of the fighters stay conscious for even one round. Mixed martial arts is a sport that perplexes me. Meanwhile, Brendan faces foreclosure on his house, but when he wins the purse at a low-level MMA fight held in a tent in a parking lot, things get worse because he's fired from his job. Neither one has the slightest idea Brendan might be involved. He asks the old man to be his trainer for a mixed martial arts championship.
Now he turns up in South Philadelphia after many years, fresh from the war, keeping a secret. Tommy always blamed Paddy for abandoning his mother, although it wasn't that simple. When we meet Paddy in the film, he is approaching Day 1,000 of sobriety after a lifetime of drinking, and embodies, as only Nick Nolte can, the shaggy, weathered heroism of a man who is trying one more time to pull himself together. When their mother left their alcoholic father, it was Tommy who went with her to California and watched her die.
Director and co-writer Gavin O'Connor arrives at that standoff by playing fair: Both have motives, they are long estranged after an unhappy split in childhood, and in some ways, they hate each other. We understand and like both characters, and so does the film.
What is intriguing is that "Warrior" doesn't have a favorite. That accounts for the three climactic rounds, because each has to advance through a semifinal. Once this premise is clear, it is as certain as night follows day that Brendan and Tommy will meet in the ring for the championship.
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