It's one of the best kept secrets of good writing.
Sure, most stories come down to the battle between good and evil. The hero on the white horse dueling it out with the evil narcissist with the twirled mustache and a penchant for bad things. It's easy. The audience can always understand it. They know who to root for. With a well timed musical cue, they may even know when to root.
But, in real life, things are rarely so crystal clear. Life is lived in the grey areas and the distinction between black and white is hardly the wide gulf we were lead to believe. And our toughest decisions aren't the ones between a wrong and a right. They lie in deciding the greater good or the lesser of two evils. And this is where great stories come from.
While we know who we want to win between the capital G Good Guy and the capital B Bad Guy, try this scenario on for size. In Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's brilliant ten-part series, "The Decalogue," a doctor is presented with a quandry. A young wife comes to seek his expert advice. Her comatosed husband is under the doctor's care and the woman needs to know for sure whether he will live or die. The reason she needs to know with such immediacy is that she's just learned that she is pregnant. Her husband is not the father. Knowing what the news would do to her husband should he ever wake up, she considers an abortion. However, if he will never wake up, she will keep the baby. The doctor, a deeply religious man, is constrained between two hard choices. If he tells her the truth, that her husband will live, he is condemning the unborn child to death. However, saving the baby will require him to break another of the Ten Commandments by telling a lie. Which does he choose? You'll have to rent "The Decalogue" to find out.
In the new film "Warrior," from the director of "Miracle," Gavin O'Connor, the audience is faced with the opposite choice. The choice between the greater good. Like all sports movies, the film comes down to a battle between two teams. Or, in the case of a mixed martial arts movie, it's a battle between two individuals. Now for the catch. The two warriors are brothers.
Brendan Conlon, played with nice guy sincerity by Joel Edgerton, may have been an athlete in the past. But now on the wrong side of thirty, he teaches physics at a cheery suburban high school in Philadelphia.
His brother, Tommy Conlon, played by Tom Hardy is a recently returned war hero, budding alcoholic, and so filled with rage that one imagines, without life in the ring, he'd probably take out his frustrations on whoever passes him on the street.
Neither brother is a bad guy. And both's reasons for wanting to win the Sparta tournament (sort of like a MMA Super Bowl) are admirable. Brendan Conlon, a victim of a predatory bank loan and an unsympathetic school board is three weeks away from losing his house. Tommy feels he owes a greater debt, which I will not reveal here, but his need for the money is equally altruistic.
Tommy also draws a significant amount of rooting interest from the fact that he is a legitimate war hero. But as every punch deserves a solid counter punch, Brendan is nursing a serious case of parental neglect. Their alcoholic father, played with an appropriate sense of sadness by Nick Nolte, clearly has favored his super athlete son Tommy to the more reserved Brendan. And one can see Brendan's plight as equal parts providing for his loving family, while trying desperately to win the respect of his unloving father.
I'll admit. Watching the trailer for "Warrior," the too-cool-for-school side of me couldn't help raise the corny alarm. This is hardly a movie with much "indie" cred, despite low key cinematography by Masanobu Takayanagi. It's clearly a movie aimed squarely at playing your heart strings with a swelling musical score and characters so relatable that rooting against them would feel like rooting against our own family.
But, here's the thing. It worked. I found myself dabbing tears from my cheek on more than one occasion (shhh, don't tell anyone). And discovering that best kept secret, screenwriters Anthony Tambakis, Cliff Dorfman, and Gavin O'Connor, craft a compelling story where the audience has an impossible choice to make. Who do we want to win? What's the greater good.
Whichever hero you choose in the end, this film is definitely worth the price of admission. While the film doesn't necessarily break any new ground, it will break through your hardened emotional shell. Bring the tissues. Or, maybe just claim allergies when your date asks you about the droplets of water running from your eyes.
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