Incredible!!!!!!!

Rating: 9/10 (28 December 2012)

Warrior tells the story of two brothers in their quest to succeed using MMA as their gateway to success. Tommy Riordan played by Tom Hardy plays an ex war veteran feeling the demoralizing affects from the war who feels that his life has lost a sense of meaning as if it has run its course. Tommy enters the MMA tournament in efforts to relinquish any self-doubt and shed a new light into his life back home from the war. Tommy's brother Brendan played by Joel Edgerton, enters the tournament in hopes of winning to save his family from their financial crisis they are in. The two brothers never had a good relationship being that Brendan(Edgerton) abandoned his brother and abusive father when he was 16. Tommy (Hardy) never truly forgave him as they both parted their separate ways in life. The two of them end up fighting for the championship.
As someone who has done MMA for 5 years, this movie instantly appealed to me. However, the one thing that I enjoyed most about the movie was the fact that you don't have to have current or prior knowledge of MMA in order to like the movie. Unlike most sport movies in which the movie mainly revolves around the actual sport itself, Warrior focus more on the tarnished relationship of Brendan and Tommy. It also focuses on the relationship they have with their father (Nick Nolte) who abused them when they were kids. Their father desperately attempts to win both of them back though the horror of his actions make it difficult for his two sons too.
Tom Hardy executes his bad ass character to near perfection as the same goes for Edgerton. As the movie progresses you get a real genuine idea of how broken and weak the relationship is between Tommy, Brendan and their father.
The movie is incredibly moving and intense. You really get the feel for how important family is by the end of the movie. The last scene where Tommy and Brendan fight is one of the most powerful and riveting scenes I have witnessed in cinema. It is not the fighting that makes that last scene so powerful, but how emotionally driven the scene is.
Fantastic movie regardless of your views or knowledge on MMA.