“CAN YOU DIG IT!”
When I was a kid in the late
seventies, I saw very little inspiration of film on the American youth, but one
thing I will never forget is seeing the neighborhood dressing up like
characters from the Walter Hill classic “The Warriors”.
The Warriors
are one of one-hundred gangs that roam the streets of New York all in different
portions of the city each protecting and running their own turf. When a meeting is called by Cyrus, the herald
of the unification of the gangs of New York to propose a truce and eventual
domination by all the gangs to running the entire city. While speaking like a cross between Malcom X,
and Dr. Doom to the gangs Cyrus is assassinated, and the Warriors are blamed,
even when one of them saw that it was the leader of The Rouges that did the
shooting. It doesn’t matter because when
the word gets out that the Warriors are responsible for the killing of Cyrus
all the other gangs are out to get them and this makes their way back to their
turf on Coney Island next to impossible to get to as the night goes on, where
not all of them will make it home.
I have to
say I don’t remember much about the movie before watching it again, I mainly
remember the fight with the baseball jersey wearing “Furies”, the fight with
the “Punks” in the station, and the final confrontation with Luther and his
gang the Rouges. Everyone remembers the
iconic “Waaaarriors come out to plaaaay…”
Watching it
now, it seems I remembered the best part which ends up being the last half of
the film. The fight scenes while old
school, still worked for me, while the first half with the Warriors on the run
not knowing that they’ve been framed kinda slogs along. The dialogue is atrocious, even for 1979 and
parts of it play like an independent film, director Walter Hill didn’t hit his
stride until the 80’s with “48 Hrs.”, “Streets of Fire”, “Red Heat” and of
course “Another 48 Hrs.”. So while I
still consider it half a good movie, I think something like this is ripe for a
remake, hell, if they’re remaking classics like “The Evil Dead” and “Carrie”
might as well improve on a dated concept with classic story.
--Robert L.
Castillo
No comments:
Post a Comment