I may have a new favorite actor: Tom Hardy. He was great in Inception, amazing in Tinker Tailor, and he blew my mind in this one.
Here he plays Tommy Conlon, a wrestling champ now grown and out of the Marines. He comes home to his father, Nick Nolte, a 12-stepping alcoholic, and his estranged brother. Both men despise their father. This is the opposite of a happy family. I cannot express that enough.
The boys aren't talking, but they both manage to enter the world cage-fighting championships and make it to the final to fight each other. This is telegraphed throughout the film, so I'm not ruining anything here. The cage fighting is not the point in any case. If it were, the film would be screwed, because the older brother's path to the fight is laughable. Even I can see this. It plays out like a soap opera. I hated that entire part of the script. I also disliked the split-screens the director used, the music, lots of things.
But the characters and the acting kept me hooked. Until the end I was so excited about this film I thought I would watch it twice and probably buy it. Tommy Conlon is such a great character (thanks to Thomas Hardy) that I was gripped. The end totally fucked this movie up for me, though. I will never watch it again, but I cannot get it out of my head. I guess that makes it a good movie. It's hitting a lot of top ten lists, that's for sure. I would recommend this - it is way better than War Horse. And what a performance by TH. But I really hope you hate the ending as much as I did.
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