New York City is at its grimiest in Walter Hill's 1970s film, 'The Warriors'; but the film is more entertainment than social commentary. In fact, it feels more like the set-up for a computer game than a movie. A number of implausibly mixed-race youth gangs gather in the Bronx to hear a proposal from the leader one of them that they should unify; the gangs are also strangely clean in a certain sense, interesting in clothes, women and fighting but apparently not involved in drug-dealing or other serious crime. Anyway, someone shoots the leader and a gang from Coney Island are (wrongly) suspected; they have travel home by subway right across the city at night, with the resident gang of each neighbourhood they pass through out to stop them from doing so. A lot of this film is frankly ridiculous; yet it is a great B-movie premise, and director Walter Hill was an expert at this sort of tough no-nonsense nonsense. It's certainly not 'The Wire'; but it is surprisingly fun, even from a distance of 30 years.
Review of The Warriors
