"Warrior" review and thoughts

After the plugging of Andrew Peterson we sat and watched "Warrior" the other night.

The premise in a sentence:
Two hard pressed brothers end up competing in a major MMA (mixed martial arts) tournament.


More background:
A Marine vet, Tommy, shows up at the doorstep of his alcoholic father who he hasn't seen for about 10 years.  At around the age of 15, Tommy and his mom run away and leave behind a very promising wrestling career (under his father's training) and an older brother (Brendan).

So Tommy mysteriously shows up and begins training, under his dad's direction, for a MMA tournament.  Brendan (600 miles away) ends up in the same tournament in desperate need of the financial winnings or losing his house.


My thoughts (probably spoilers):
As much as this sounds like a simple Disney good luck film (which would be released on Touchstone because MMA is bloody) it isn't.  I found the dialog crisp and understated.  It lets pauses and faces tell as much of the story as the spoken lines.  The music (especially in the final fight) was great in squeezing and supporting the emotion and mood of the scenes.

I'm a moderate MMA fan.  I've watched fights and I find them enjoyable.  I know some element is the "fight" and who can be tougher; but I also see the strategy of setting up punches, kicks and moves.  That's compelling.  The MMA in Warrior is theatric - high flying and flashy.  It isn't to the point of being a turnoff for being so false, which is good.  I'm pretty sure Rocky has the same touch to true boxers and any law or hospital TV drama will have the same feel to medical and legal professionals.

One of the underlying themes is the father, Paddy, (played superbly by Nick Nolte) listening to "Moby Dick".  He's 1000 days sober and falls off the wagon after a brutally honest exchange with Tommy.  Ahab wrecks his ship, his crew and his life in pursuit of the white whale.  Paddy is drunk in the hotel listening to the story and yelling to "turn the ship around".  It seems like the entire movie was built around this scene.  It struck me as such an honest portrayal of the trap of relentless pursuit of a dream.  The addictions in our lives can be alcohol, drugs, and even our dreams.

The character stories are believable.  I found myself rooting for each of the main three characters and each has a battle.  The family complexities, brothers, father/son and husband/wife, are well played and not trite or glossy in this.  Each struggle is somehow understandable and heartbreaking.

I highly recommend this movie because it tells a life story and doesn't ignore the grit.  It does have MMA so be prepared to see guys punching each other and throw each other around the caged ring.  The story is good, the characters are simple but their struggles aren't; and neither are ours.

The Opposite of Forgiveness is Entitlement

A friend (Julie Wright-Silander) tweeted this:

The opposite of forgiveness is entitlement.

Deep.  Very Deep.  A day later and I'm still pondering it.  I'm just trying to unpack this so pardon my rambling.


First up is forgiveness:
forgiving debts; forgiving for wrongs.  It carries that something is owed (money or reparations) and the item/gap is removed without payment.  I owe something to another and they close the gap without my filling it.  It is granted by the person in power.


Then the entitlement:
a given credit; owing of something expected.  I think it carries that I'm owed something by people in possession of the power to give it.  I am due something by another; they have to fill the gap. 



The -ness and -ment are about the attitude of each.  An attitude that I owed something and have been graced out of it.  Conversely is the attitude that something is owed to me and others work(s) must fill it.

I guess I have to agree, they are opposites.
 

Optimism of the age

This was posted on FB and struck me, so I'm just reposted:

"ALL the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do NOT fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a m...onstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the WRONG place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home."

~G.K. Chesterton ("Orthodoxy")

Ho-Hey MLK

Martin Luther King Jr day is coming up.  I look to this day and I like to read some of the MLK Jr sermons.  He didn't shy away from issues, but that was out of his belief that God cared for justice and cared for people.  To me it's a shame how he has been whitewashed to caring about issues and not really believing in God.

I read a short biography that described him as a civil rights leader inspired by Ghandi.  Let's not forget that he didn't merely deliver speeches, he preached.  He delivered God's message, not his own.


The church today is challenged to proclaim God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to be the hope of men in all of their complex personal and social problems. Many will continue to come in quest of answers to life’s problems. Many young people who knock on the door are perplexed by the uncertainties of life, confused by daily disappointments, and disillusioned by the ambiguities of history. Some who come have been taken from their schools and careers and cast in the role of soldiers. We must provide them with the fresh bread of hope and imbue them with the conviction that God has the power to bring good out of evil. Some who come are tortured by a nagging guilt resulting from their wandering in the midnight of ethical relativism and their surrender to the doctrine of self-expression. We must lead them to Christ who will offer them the fresh bread of forgiveness. Some who knock are tormented by the fear of death as they move toward the evening of life. We must provide them with the bread of faith in immortality, so that they may realize that this earthly life is merely an embryonic prelude to a new awakening.