Come Out and Plaaaaaayyyyyy…

Considered to be a cult film by many (even though it was actually a theatrical hit, making $22 Mil off a small, $4 Mil budget), The Warriors is one of those films that is talked about by fans of film but generally unknown outside those circles. It’s honestly easy to see why, too: if you go in without any knowledge of the film, you very likely will end up dismissing it. The film is simple enough in its structure, and silly enough in its execution, that it feels like a farce, a joke played on audiences when, on paper, it’s supposed to be this grim-dark thriller. You have to be in the right headspace, have the right frame of mind, to enjoy The Warriors, but if you can get there then it’s a good time.

I wasn’t in the right mood for The Warriors the first time I watched it. I didn’t know what the film was about, beyond “gangs in New York” (but not, you know, Gangs of New York), and I was also aware that a video game for the movie had come out, in 2005 from Rockstar Games, and I decided to give the film a chance then. I wasn’t impressed. It felt silly and weird and it didn’t really have much of a story. Of course, it took time for the film to percolate in my brain, for me to get the vibe it was going for and to appreciate what it was doing. Now, years later, I find that I actually rather enjoy the movie and can really get into its vibe. I just had to figure it out for myself.

The thing about The Warriors is that while its story is serious, it purposefully has notes of surreality to it. If you swapped its story from the streets of New York to the deserts of the Outback, you practically have a Mad MaxStarted with a single 1970s Australian exploitation flick (a popular genre in the country at the time), the Mad Max series went on to spawn three sequels, an entire genre, style, and what many consider the greatest action film of all time, Fury Road. Not bad from a little low-budget film about cars smashing each other after the fall of society. sidestory. Very little of the details would need to be changed (swap out the Metro for, say, a few traveling caravans of vehicles) to make this the perfect post-apocalyptic wasteland film. And that, of course, was kind of the point: this film was a reactionary story, built to look at (and mock) the idea that roving gangs of street hoods were ruining New York City, turning it into a metropolitan wasteland. It’s meant to be a little silly in much the same way that all the villains of the Mad Max films (Dementus, Master Blaster, the Doof Warrior, et al) are silly. You can be silly and scary at that same time, which is a vibe that The Warriors understands. It doesn’t undercut the thrills, it just shifts them around.

The Warriors works because it understands its innate appeal. It can be a ripping parody of the pearl-clutching panic about gangs in the 1970s while also being a great piece of metropolitan apocalyptic storytelling. It’s the kind of story that gets to have its cake and eat it too, using the fears of gangs while also reveling in their actions. Plus, its whole setup does lead to a pretty gripping story that makes you care about the lead, titular characters. That, above all else, is why this film is so good.

The movie opens with all the gangs of New York arriving at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, each sending nine representatives, unarmed, to listen to the leader of the Gramercy Riffs, Cyrus (Roger Hill) as he talks about uniting the gangs. There’s a truce across the city, and if the gangs can maintain that truce, and combine their power, they could rule the city. It’s a great idea, in theory, but not everyone is on board. Luther (David Patrick Kelly), leader of the Rogues, sneaks in a gun and shoots Cyrus in the middle of his speech. He then blames it on the Warriors, the outfit from Coney Island, so they can take the fall for his actions.

The gunshot sends everyone from every gang scrambling, while the police, who were already watching the situations, move in. Hearing about what the Warriors supposedly did, the Riffs put a kill order out (over the radio, with some smooth grooves) for the gang, leaving them to try and get home, 30 miles away, any way they can while every other gang in the city (which amounts to 60,000 potential people in their way) comes out to take the hit. It’s up to the Warriors to survive, to escape, and to find a way home to safety, maybe while also clearing their name.

The Warriors has a very specific task it has to tackle: it has to make us care about gang members. These are criminals, a fact the movie doesn’t shy away from, street thugs who are happy stealing and fighting and ruling the roads like roving bands. For us to care about them, to want to spend time with them, the film has to find a way to make us sympathetic to their plight. By having some other group not only violate the truce, but blame the Warriors for it, the film sets them up as the underdogs. Yes, they’re not the best people, this is true, but in comparison to everyone coming after them they feel saintly by comparison.

With that said, the film is willing to show their shitty side as well. Once you’re attached to them, and see that some of the guys in the gang are honorable people, it then also lets us see their misogyny, cruelty, and violence. It renders these guys as real characters, and lets them experience the consequences of many of their actions. Ajax (James Remar), for example, sexually assaults a woman he meets in a park and, as a result, she handcuffs him to a bench and gets him arrested. The film doesn’t let the guys off hook when they stray from their goal of just getting home.

There’s also the matter of Mercy (Deborah Van Valkenburgh)/ a girl the guys meet as they venture through Orphans territory. She’s a bit of a dangerous girl, trying to get the Warriors in trouble. But then she ends up joining them on their trip home, hooking up with the leader of the group, Swan (Michael Beck), even though he’s pretty shitty to her for most of the film. He does eventually apologize for his behavior, but it feels like a very abusive relationship even if, at the start, she just wanted to see them all get killed by the Orphans. It’s not exactly a relationship you cheer for.

But then, that does reflect the sexual politics of these guys. Most of these gangs are made up of boy (not men, of course, but teenagers) who don’t really understand sex and sexuality. They haven’t matured, instead living on the streets and trying to act tough. There are very few women represented in the gangs (there’s only one female gang we even meet, the Lizzies), and even less that are treated with respect by the guys, and that’s because they simply don’t know how to do it. They aren’t ready to grow up, they just run from everything serious, including the danger at their backs.

This is then contrasted by the weird and silly nature of the many gangs. The film goes out of its way to add surreality to its world, crafting gangs that wouldn’t seem real outside of a film. There are a number that are shown, from the Baseball Furies (baseball players), to the Orphans, the Lizzies, mimes, pimps, dancers, and many more. They all have colorful costumes and sometimes feature elaborate makeup as well. It makes for a very creative looking cast of background characters, people you can’t always take seriously even as they’re coming for the throats of the protagonists.

The film works because it finds that balance between the absurd and the real, the serious and the spectacular. It’s a low-budget, street-level thriller that still manages to find a way to craft its own style, its own world. It’s rough and tumble and very rarely nice, but that suits its story and its characters. By the time the Warriors make it back home you feel like you’ve been on the journey with them, and the resolution of their escape feels earned and glorious. This isn’t a film for everyone, but if you can get into the right mindset for this film, and you can learn to enjoy the characters and the world, then The Warriors is going to give you everything you want from an apocalyptic adventure tale.