Director: Walter Hill
Cast: Michael Beck, James Remar, Dorsey Wright, Brian Tyler
Have I Seen it Before: Never. Honestly, aside from the wobbly PS2 video game in 2005 was a trip to Wal Mart around that same time. College weekends would be spent like that sometimes, just going to Wal Mart, ostensively to grab groceries, but ultimately to go neck-deep in the five dollar DVD pit to see if we could unearth any hidden gems. My friend looked through the offerings and lamented that the one movie he could really go for in that moment was The Warriors, which I had never heard of.
Then he managed to stumble upon that very same movie. We couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that the Wal Mart was alive, heard his plea, and supplied his wish. I mean, as the video game had been recently released, a special edition DVD was a no-brainer for Paramount, so that’s the Occam’s Razor explanation.
Although I wouldn’t be caught dead in one now, trips to Wal Mart really allowed for magic once.
Did I Like It: I think so, for the most part. It’s thoroughly attached to a B-movie sensibility that can lend the proceedings an earnest, enjoyable energy, and the performances surrounding it don’t descend to camp for camp’s sake. It also uses its limited budget to paint an image in its minimalism of a future which is as believable now as it might have been forty years ago.
The writing is simple, but that works to its advantage. There’s not an ounce of fat or self-indulgence when the story has a laser focus on the gang trying to get back to Coney Island after receiving exclusive blame for the assassination of a rival gang leader.
But I don’t get the comic book motif. I get it even less than I did when it was used in Hulk (2003). At least in that film it was based a on a comic book. Here, it was just baffling and distracting.