The Warriors - 1979 - 3½ Stars

Actors:  Michael Beck, James Remar
Director:  Walter Hill

In a lot of my recent reviews, I've mentioned my teenage self as the ideal viewer for films.  I think perhaps that's why I haven't watched a lot of movies lately - I feel disengaged from them in some way.  Few people I know seem to watch many movies anymore.  Netflix's selection of movies is quite dismal.  Regardless, they've got The Warriors, and I wondered again about how my teenage self would engage with this, especially since I know it's a favorite of people born between, say, 1965 and 1975.  I don't think he'd like it very much.

The Warriors is a lot about notions of masculinity and adherence to codes; even within violent groups of men, there are codes.  There's also a threadbare plot and threadheavy costuming - seriously, the costumes in this movie are ridiculous.  I cannot tell if this film was attempting campiness or a very strange form of seriousness - I think given the times, director, and location of this movie that it was doing the latter.  It grows tiresome in its latter third but does not overstay its welcome. Like so few films I've seen from recent years, it suggests a world outside the movie that the viewer can wonder about - why is there a disc jockey who cares about gang wars?  How do these gangs form?  But who cares about all that, it's just a well-directed action film - it's just a little too ridiculous and movie-ish for me to love.