I’m delighted to announce that we have a special guest this week at the Rollerblog. This blog post comes at you courtesy of Chris Cameron from Angry Seafood. It is our first guest post here at the Rollerblog - if you are interested in doing a guest post let me know at rollerblog at gmail dot com.

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The Warriors
By Chris Cameron

Warriors come out and play-ay!

The Warriors, the 1979 action drama, is not what you expect out of a gang film. There is no mafia, no turf/class struggle, or no tales of growing up on the wrong side of the law.

It is simply an exciting, dramatic, tension-filled story of one gang having to run the gauntlet to get home after being framed for murder.

The story begins in Coney Island, the home of The Warriors gang. Nine of the gang members have been invited to take part in a meeting with all the gangs of New York in the Bronx. The largest gang in the city, the Riffs, and its leader, Cyrus, reveal their plans to unite all of the New York gangs. Unfortunately, Cyrus is killed in mid-speech.

The assassination turns the scene into chaos. Suddenly, a random gang called The Rogues accuses The Warriors of killing Cyrus. Now our ‘heroes’ must get across town and back to Coney Island while having to deal with the rival gangs out to stop them.

On their way home, The Warriors must contend with groups like the Baseball Furies (who dress like baseball players and swing bats for weapons), the Orphans (who have a self-esteem issue and also weren’t invited to the meeting), and the Lizzies (an all girl-gang) - as well as the police.

Meanwhile The Rogues are still hot on The Warriors’ trail.

Throughout the film, a radio DJ periodically gives updates on the group’s progress, in order to let the other gangs know where The Warriors are. The DJ also provides these updates for for the benefit of the viewer, and to introduce music into the movie.

The music in the film gives a dark, mechanical feel and the multitude of tight shots add to the tension of the chase.The cast isn’t full of known stars but you will recognize a few of them. Michael Beck, who played Swan, was also in the extremely weird 1980 film Xanadu.

James Remar, who plays Ajax, has recently been in episodes of ‘Jericho’, ‘CSI: Miami’, and ‘Dexter’.

Deborah Van Valkenburgh, who portrayed the trashy girl Mercy, went on to star in the highly over-rated ‘Too Close for Comfort’ sitcom.

If you haven’t seen The Warriors yet put this flick on the top of your must-rent or buy list. You will thank me later.

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Chris Cameron is the founder of Angry Seafood, a blog of odd, weird, and sometimes dirty humor. He also writes a weekly political humor column every Thursday at Radioactive Liberty and loves movies.

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