Warriors Come Out and Play-ay!
March 11, 2008
By: 
rollerkaty
Category: 1979, Guest Post, The Warriors
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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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.
| 2.5 |
March 11th, 2008 at 9:41 am
In the very early 80s we used to rent VHS videos from a man who went door-to-door with a suitcase; naturally he didn’t have many to choose from so we saw some over and over, and The Warriors was one of them. A fantastic film - the Baseball Furies make for great fancy dress inspiration - and some of Cyrus’ speech was sampled in the Pop Will Eat Itself song “Can U Dig It?” A good story of honour with a great atmosphere.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I bought this movie for my older son when he was 17. I put it in his Christmas stocking. He looked at me, puzzled, with a sincere “WTF?” He had not seen nor heard of this movie, but I’m a mom and I know my kids.
He played it at least 3 times that very day. One following Halloween he had to be a Baseball Fury.
I love being right.
March 11th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
This is not a good movie for an 8 years-old boy to watch but I’ve seen this great motion picture. Thanks for digging my seventies memories back
March 11th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Who could forget…
w a rr i ors……. come out to p laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaY
w a rr i ors……. come out to p laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaY
Classic.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
This was a lot of fun to write up because it meant I had to watch the movie again.
Glad to see it brought back memories for people.
And thanks for the guest post spot Katy.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Holy crap! Now that’s a moldy oldy.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:35 am
I love The Warriors and the soundtrack is cool.
When my folks watched it over here in the UK at the cinema there were riots and the police had to be called. Not because of my folks mind you
March 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Has anyone played the PS2 game based on this movie?
Just wondering is it is worth renting (or buying).
March 12th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
OMG…if I have to listen to that video game being played one more time I may have a seizure. Hubby bought the game for X Box and spent days playing it. Reliving his past.
Arg! Now I’m going to have that phrase in my head …. ‘w a rr i ors……. come out to p laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaY’ ARG!!! LOL =D
March 12th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Reggie: If you are a fan of the movie, you will probably love the PS2 game. Rockstar did a good job of recreating the “vibe” of the movie. It’s a kind of prequel and you get to do a lot of gang-related fighting and stealing, with heaps of property destruction thrown in.
I would rent rather than buy; it got tedious pretty fast.
March 13th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Well we will have to check the game out! I’m intrigued…
April 20th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
this movie is the coolest movei i have ever seen
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