Director Walter Hill’s low budget counter-culture film The Warriors made quite an impact in 1979, and is an effective example of bare-bones story telling. Even if its gritty, street story is a bit more fantasy than reality.
The Production: 4/5
When a charismatic gang leader named Cyrus (Roger Hill) decides to bring all the New York City area gangs together as a joint force, nine representatives of each gang travel to The Bronx for a rally. “Can you dig it?” As soon as Cyrus makes his plans known, he is murdered and the Coney Island gang The Warriors is falsely blamed. Now the nine Warriors representatives must try to make it back home to Coney Island before the entire city comes down on them.
Leading the trek is impromptu leader, Swan (Michael Beck) who is constantly challenged by the insecure hothead Ajax (James Remar). Shortly they are joined by Mercy (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) the moll (is that still a thing?) of a small-time gang, The Orphans, who are so insignificant that they were excluded from the rally. As The Warriors move through the city, they are confronted by an increasingly odd assortment of gangs trying to stop or kill them.
It’s been at least 20 years since I had seen The Warriors, and I forgot how ’70s the filmmaking style is. It’s also effective at covering up its low budget, by including many scenes that were clearly filmed on a small soundstage, with closeups of one or two characters, and simple dialog. I was also reminded how similar the opening sequence is to Hill’s 1984 film Streets of Fire, minus the awesome Ry Cooder & Jim Steinman soundtrack. The two films are actually rather similar, in a certain sense, with Fire having more of an obvious “fable” sensibility. In fact, the opening credits call it a “Rock and Roll Fable.” The Warriors, on the other hand, is presented as a more pseudo-realistic version of a similar story. While it appears on the surface to be representing a more realistic world, there are subtle, and not so subtle surreal bits. This especially involves some of the gangs, ranging from the standard, to the bizarre, such as a “baseball” team, and clowns in full makeup. The group’s trip across a hellish Manhattan can often come off more as a horror movie than a drama. At a concise 93 minutes, The Warriors also exhibits one of the better aspects of pre-2000s movies. No doubt, if it were made today, it would run closer to 135 minutes.
Possibly the most memorable element in The Warriors is the downright creepy portrayal of rival gang member Luther by David Patrick Kelly. His iconic clinking bottles with the taunting “Warriors, come out to play” is so eerie, becoming progressively unhinged with every repetition, I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually had a negative effect on his later acting career. It’s an unfortunate aspect of the film industry, because that scene, which was reportedly improvised, is the most famous of the entire film.
Video: 4/5
3D Rating: NA
The Warriors was filmed on Eastman 100T 5247, so it has a (mostly) consistent, reasonably fine grain image. In 1979, I doubt there was much available in higher speed, coarser grain films, so instead, more dramatic, artificial lighting was frequently incorporated to illuminate the New York night scenes, which make up the majority of the film. The one exception is during a handful of scenes late in the film, which seem to be sourced from extremely poor quality, multiple generation dupes. This only happens with two shots, which are cut to multiple times, and only during at most a two minute segment. I suspect this was the only extant source for those few seconds of footage. While the drop in quality of these shots is quite obvious, even rather jarring, I can only guess it was unavoidable.
Audio: 4.5/5
The Warriors was originally released with a mono soundtrack, which is included here in Dolby HD, along with HD stereo, 5.1 and Atmos soundtracks. I tend to find surround, and especially Atmos soundtracks from mono sources to be rather artificial sounding. During viewing, I cycled through all the available options, and ultimately preferred stereo with surround processing, or original mono.
Special Features: 3/5
This review was derived from a non-release screener, so it’s only possible to comment on the actual content of the two discs.
Disc 1: 1979 Theatrical Cut
- New audio commentary by film critic Walter Chaw, author of A Walter Hill Film
- War Stories, new interview with director Walter Hill
- A new roundtable discussion in which filmmakers Josh Olson (A History of Violence), Lexi Alexander (Green Street), and Robert D. Kryzkowski (The Man Who Killed Hitler and then Bigfoot) discuss their love of The Warriors and the work of director Walter Hill
- Battling Boundaries, new interview with editor Billy Weber
- Gang Style, new interview with costume designer Bobbie Mannix
- Armies of the Night, new exclusive look at costume designs and photographs from the archive of designer Bobbie Mannix
- Sound of the Streets, new appreciation of composer Barry De Vorzon and the music of The Warriors by film historian Neil Brand
- Isolated score option
- Come Out to Play, new look at the iconic locations of the Warriors’ Coney Island home turf
- The Beginning, archival extra looking back on how The Warriors came to be
- Battleground, archival extra in which director Walter Hill and assistant director David O. Sosna look back at the difficulties of shooting on location in New York City
- The Way Home, archival extra focusing on the look of film with director of photography Andrew Laszlo
- The Phenomenon, archival extra
- Theatrical trailer
- Image gallery
Disc 2: 2005 Alternate Version
- Archive introduction by director Walter Hill
Overall: 4/5
The Warriors is an excellent example of minimalist story telling, not to mention an enjoyable trip down memory lane. A sort of road movie with a twist. Its simple, distinctly ’70s style is a welcome refrain from the now all-too-common, overly refined action movie. There are no special effects or dazzling audio tricks. Just a basic story told in a direct way.
The Warriors [Blu-ray]
$41.18 $45.95
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