Nick Nolte Deserves an Oscar Nom

Rating: 7/10 (23 November 2011)

On the surface, Warrior is about MMA and UFC fighting, but this takes a back seat to the gritty emotion of the relationship between father-son and brother-brother (Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton).
As back story, we have a family that has crumbled at the hands of an alcoholic father (Nick Nolte), who nowadays is mature and sober (and listens to Moby Dick on audio book).
Joel Edgerton may have a more enticing story playing the older brother who gets suspended from his normal science teacher job for fighting MMA, but the hardcore way Tom Hardy portrays an ex-Marine beast is undeniable. You will most definitely root against him, but the stronger your hatred towards Hardy, the more you have to applaud his amazing performance.
Of course, Nick Nolte takes the cake. In a scene that reads "Oscar Nom" all over it, the type of scene that Oscar people salivate over, we find the mature, 1,000 days sober father in a hotel room drowning his sorrows. With empty bottles strewn across the floor, Moby Dick piping through the headphones, Nolte is drunk as a sailor shouting, "Ahab! You stop the ship! Ahab! Stop the Ship!"