“The Warriors” (1979)
Directed by Walter Hill, Written by Walter Hill & David Shaber, Based on the novel of the same name by Sol Yurick. Starring Michael Beck, James Remar, David Patrick Kelly & Deborah Van Valkenburgh.
In a fictional dystopian New York City all five boroughs are riddled with hundreds of street gangs. “Cyrus” The leader of the Bronx-based “The Gramercy Riffs” has garnered a reputation as a profit / spiritual leader. He has engineered a truce between all the New York Gangs and has summoned 9 members from each gang in the city to attend a meeting in a public park in The Bronx with strict instructions not to come armed.
The Warriors are a gang that hail from the small seaside neighbourhood in South Brooklyn called Coney Island. They travel by subway up to the Bronx to hear Cyrus preach to the 1000-strong crowd. Cyrus takes the podium and explains that the city gangs now live in peace and if they all work together they would outnumber law enforcement 5 to 1. As the crowd are whipped up and all cheer a shot rings out and Cyrus is assassinated also at that exact moment the police raid the meeting.
The assassin Luther the leader of the gang “The Rogues” sees a member of “The Warriors” and shouts “There he is! That’s him! The Warrior! He shot Cyrus! We saw it! The Warriors did it! The Warriors did it!”
The Warriors now have every single gang member and cop in the whole city after them.
It’s the middle of the night and they are 50 miles from home.
Ok Wimps! Let’s talk about The Warriors!!
This cult classic is one of my favourite movies of all time. It is so weird yet straightforward complex and simple at the same time.
If you have read my previous blog post about the writer-director Walter Hill I said Hill changed his approach to script writing after reading the screenplay for the John Borman film “Point Blank” he described it as "extremely spare, almost Haiku style. Both stage directions and dialogue."
The Warriors is a great example of that approach. The dialogue is sparse and the movie is all show don’t tell. Hill establishes the plot in brief clips and sound bites during the opening credits. Showing us Coney Island, The Warriors gang members and their unique looks and incite into their personalities, we hear about the meeting and where it is, and We learn that Cyrus is a big deal and carries a lot of mystique within the gang community. Hill uses shots of the NYC subway map intercut with The Warriors riding in trains to let us see the scale of their journey. We are all set up in the first 6 minutes of the movie! This film is lean and tight! and by the 15-minute mark, it all kicks off.
The movie pretty much stays laser-focused on the central plot of these guys desperately trying to get home against all odds.
The gangs featured in the film are all pretty amazing when it comes to character/costume design some are truly iconic and some are pretty tragic.
“The Warriors” aesthetic is shirtless but sporting a brown leather motorcycle-style vest with the gang's logo on the back. “The Rouges” are 70s-looking greasers wearing leather/denim and chains, “The Gramercy Riffs” (Cyrus’s gang) are an African American gang who seem to have two looks the solder types look quite militant and wear aviator sunglasses whereas the more senior members seem to wear silk men's kimonos giving a 70s kung fu Jim Kelly vibe. “The Lizzies” the all-girl gang look great and come off as believable so nothing crazy they just all have this top they all wear which is rainbow-coloured holographic almost tie-dye style print.
Some gangs come off as just lacklustre like “The Orphans” who all wear dirty green T-shirts and “The Punks” who wear matching denim dungarees. There is a gang called “Turnbull ACs” who all have shaved heads and wear army surplus but all have amazingly bad tattoos drawn on with marker pen.
Wearing hats and not having sleeves is very important to these gangs in this world.
So The Hurricanes and the Van Courtland Rangers are hatted and sleeveless whereas the Saracens, The Boyle Avenue Runners and The Gladiators are mainly just sleeveless.
The most ridiculous is a gang called “The High-Hats” who wear matching outfits of black trousers a red long-sleeve top with black braces and a black top hat with their faces painted white to look like French mime artists! It’s pretty ridiculous.
But ironically the second most ridiculous gang are probably the 3rd most iconic in the movie “The Baseball Furies” I think they actually called “The Furies” and the baseball is implied due to them wearing full baseball uniforms with a cap and carrying baseball bats which is cool but they also have their faces painted in weird half-and-half colours that look like a mix of crazy sports fan mixed with urban war paint and a failed makeup design for an alien race for an episode of the original series of Star Trek (I realise me writing crazed sports fan / urban war paint makes it sound right on the money but I think in giving them too much credit) It’s all pretty nutty but very effective and they are a fan favourite.
There is a reading of this movie that draws parallels between the plot of The Warriors and the epic poem “The Odyssey” from 700 BCE that is credited to the Greek poet Hommer. The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus the king of Ithaca who fought in the Trojan War for ten years and then had to make his way home over a vast distance and overcome the difficulties and obstacles he encounters on the way.
The Warriors leave the site of a battle and must embark on a hazardous and lengthy voyage home. Famously Odysseus has a run-in with a Cyclops. The Warriors run into a gang called “The Orphans” whose leader seems to be ocularly challenged by either having an eye that is either very lazy or prosthetic. Odysseus and his crew almost fall foul to the Sirens a female-like mythical creatures who lure men in with their song to crash their ships and die on dangerous rocks. The Warriors have a close call with “The Lizzies” an all-female gang who lure them back to their clubhouse with the intent of murdering them. In the Odyssey omnipotent Greek gods interfere with Odysseus’s progress this is slightly mirrored in the film with the local radio DJ broadcasting and tipping off the gangs to The Warrior’s movements and possible location.
I'm not saying that reading of the movie is watertight but it is there.
Notable performances in this movie come from Roger Hill who plays Cyrus although his screen time is brief it is very impactful and memorable he also has one of the most quotable lines in the film. “CAN YOU DIG IT!!”
David Patrick Kelly who plays Luther the leader of The Rouges (aka the guy who shoots Cyrus) was born to play that role! He delivers this twitchy, unhinged, grimy performance and also has the other most quoted lines in the film “Warriors! Come out to PLAY-YAY!!”
I also need to mention Deborah Van Valkenburgh’s role and performance. I haven't mentioned her up until now because her role is kinda hard to explain.
She plays Mercy who first appears about 30 minutes into the film. When she first appears she is a strong confident young woman who comes off as very… let's say “sex-positive”.
She takes a shine to “Swann” one of The Warriors and she tags along for the rest of the film. While she spends time with Swann she drops her front and shows herself to be vulnerable, jaded and disillusioned with her life. Swann and Mercy fall in love and her character is the love interest but the part is written and she performs in such a way that she sidesteps every trope and cliche around an on-screen romance it is so refreshing.
Basically, I like this movie a lot! If you haven't seen it watch it! If you have seen it watch it again and pay close attention to the costumes and the Mercy / Swann plot line.
The Warriors is a Paramount Picture so you can watch it on the Paramount+ streaming service.
You can rent it on Apple TV for £3.49 or Amazon Prime £2.99
Or you can buy and keep it on Blu-ray see link bellow
