Saturday 23 March 2013

Character Review (Tommy Riordan from Warrior)

Domo (Hello). This should be the 2nd entry of the year. It took me a while to finish this so I'm hardly taking a time doing this. On my internship right now, really I don't have time to keep this updated. Maybe i will tell about my internship some other time.

Okay , today i want to talk about a character from the mma (mixed martial art) movie Warrior. Warrior can be describe as one of the best combat sports movie of all time since the Rocky series. It tells the stories  of two estranged brothers, Brendan Conlon and Tommy Riordan (Conlon) who fight their way to the top of the mma world through a championship called Sparta. Now I want to focus on one of the main character which is Tommy Riordan.


Tommy Riordan (played by the Tom Hardy aka Bane in Dark Knight Rises) is the main antagonist of the movie. Actually he is not a bad guy, its just he's been conflicting with his brother Brendan in this movie.
Tommy was a former marine who had  been assigned to Iraq. There, he involve in a battle that costs his comrades life. In order to show his concern, he willingly join the open mma bout named Sparta so that he can use the prize money for the widow of his fallen comrade

Tommy became an internet phenomenon when his video beating up Mad Dog Grimes, one of the mma top fighter in a sparring match went viral on youtube. Not only that, a video of him saving lives tearing up a tanks door also went viral, this making him an internet phenomenon. Yet, nobody knows who he is and his real identity was.

The fact is that, he has been using his mother surname (Riordan instead of Conlon) in order to avoid the military to track him down. He has been considered as AWOL (absent without leave) that the punishment is a couple months of jail.

Tommy and his brother had a tragic childhood days. Having a drunken boxer as a father, they were having a hard time. Making it more tragic that his brother Brendan left him for the old man. That is why he hate his old man so much.

Ironically, he goes back to his father to train him for the Sparta bout. However,he showed love for his father when he was unstable and depressed. Talking about his fighting style, he's the one that move forward without any hesitation and fear and also a knockout who never wins through points but by giving a knockout strike to his opponent. I really love the scene of his first Sparta fight where he KO'ed Francisco Barbossa in an instant and just walk away without having a declaration of winning. The scene had become the famous since of the movie and favored by sport combat fans.

I love Tommy's character so much. He had a personality of never cared of what happening around him. He just fight and leave without claiming any applause. On the ring, he fight with a great speed and his opponent end up with devastation.

I love Warrior maybe not only because its dramatic storyline, maybe because I am a sport combat athlete myself. Still, this is a movie that the great movie since the Rocky series.Well thats all for now. Ja ne (see ya)