By Brittany Gil
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2.5 stars out of 5

“Clichéd, boring, and predictable,” said Jeffery Lars. “At one point I woke up to the sound of my own snore.”

“Warrior” is no knockout, just a mixed martial arts rendition of the “Rocky” sagas.  The filming was mediocre; it contained not one workout montage, but two, the acting was woodenly performed, and within the first three minutes of the movie you could tell how it was going to end.The climax happens in the last forty minutes of the 139-minute movie; everything up to that point felt like a melodramatic time- filler.

The story tries to play on the tension of a family and the desperation for forgiveness amidst a coldblooded sport. It could have worked, but it didn’t. The three lead performances—by Nick Nolte, Tom Hardy, and Joel Edgerton—are unavoidably bland.

“I could have acted better,” said Leandra Acevedo, “and I don’t act.”

Squeezed by the economy, high school physics teacher Brendan Conlon (Edgerton), a former middling Ultimate Fighting Championship contender, convinces Frank Campana (Frank Grillo) to train him for Sparta, a 16-round mixed martial arts competition for the world’s best fighters.  What he doesn’t know is that his estranged younger brother Tommy (Hardy) has turned up on the doorstop of both their estranged father, Paddy (Nolte), to train for the same event.

While some movie goers thought it was sleep worthy, others begged to differ. Frequent movie watcher and enjoyer of action films Brittany Long said, “I felt inspired. I could go out right now and just conquer anything.”

I asked Long what it was about the film that inspired her, to which she responded, “The fighting was awesome.”