Warriors (1994) User Reviews

Gary Busey, Dead Or Alive

[bkoganbing · 1/10 · 15 January 2010]

Warriors is a Canadian production which follows the lead of most films from our northern neighbor in that you take one or two American actors for some kind of box office and then the rest of the cast is filled with Canadians. Could things have been that bad for Gary Busey and Michael Pare that this was the best offer they could get in 1994?

One thing I have to give the Canadians credit for, by making this an American story they don't have to explain why we've got an elite team of anti-social assassins who can only be housed in prison because all their moral sense of conscience has been driven out of them.

Of course when that happens even though you're treated as really elite prisoners, you do get a yen to see something of the outside world between killing missions. Which is what happens to Gary Busey the team leader. When he goes AWOL, the government uses a guy Busey trained in Michael Pare to bring him back, dead or alive.

Somehow some prostitute played by Wendi Fulford gets involved in the Busey hunt with Busey. And Pare in his attempts to get Busey was starting to remind me of Wile E. Coyote.

Another film acted by players who looked like they were hoping the paychecks would clear. Skip this one by all means.

Really bad, even for a Canadian film

[Wizard-8 · 25 December 1999]

CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP! Every shot reeks of the utter poverty the filmmakers were stricken with. Sometimes the photography is a little ambitious, but at these times it seems they are trying to put an epic look to what is a ludicrously simple (very simple) action story! Speaking of action, there's not much of it. Busey fans won't be entertained by their idol - by his stupor, it looks like this was made during his, um, high days. At least he's more lively than the near comatose Pare! I can't think of a single reason why to watch it, even if you were involved in the making of it.

Gives Canadian Cinema a Bad Name

[benmcfee · 1/10 · 26 November 2008]

This is in response to one review that claimed "Warriors" was bad "even for a Canadian film". First of all, yes, the film stunk to high heavens. The acting was terrible, the action was sub- par at best (you can't have a train chase like you can a car chase!), and the characters were awful. However, to suggest that this sort of fare can be expected from Canadian filmmakers isn't fair. I don't know if this was the intention of the reviewer, or not, but that's what happened.

Canadian films (and I know I'm generalizing here) are by-and-large strange, often unpleasant, and (like it or not) unique. It's also true that they are definitely not for everyone, because of their odd nature. Yet, we see cinema up in Canada that simply does not get made anywhere else. A good Canadian film typically has a very unique concept that can be done for very little money, or a unique take on a familiar subject (also done with very little money).

This dreck called "Warriors" fails utterly, in my mind, because it attempts to imitate and American form of action film. Because of this, it suffers from its low budget that Canadian films just about always have. Every attempt to imitate the Americans (that I've seen, anyway) by a Canadian filmmaker, has failed. I can only hope that the Canadian film industry can be judged by better examples than this. For some titles that have been well-received, check out "Last Night," "Hard-Core Logo," "Fubar," "Passchendaele," "Pontypool," "Eastern Promises," and "The Sweet Hereafter", just to name a few.

Slow. You'll think it will never end.

[tarbosh22000 · 2/10 · 24 March 2014]

Frank Vail (Busey) is the head of a team of government assassins. Apparently these guys are crazy, but they're also effective, so they're kept in a loony bin/barracks. When Vail escapes the compound, and takes a prostitute (Fulford) along for his joyride, a man equal to his skill in killing power is sent to stop him: Colin Neal (Pare, looking a lot like Matthew Broderick here). So now it's a man-against-man chase to see if Neal can take down Vail. Will he do it...and will anyone care?

Warriors is not a good movie. Nu-Image strikes out again with this overlong, uninteresting, unengaging turkey. It's Busey and Pare at their worst - it truly is "stupid" vs. "wooden" in this audience-testing, unnecessary production.

We're trying to find worthwhile things about this movie, and it is technically well-done, and there's some interesting cinematography. But that's it. It has no energy and it's not paced and plotted like an action movie. It's unbelievably talky and slow - it's hard to imagine a SLOWER pace - and it's droll, dull, and insults the patience and intelligence of the audience. What's really annoying about Warriors is how it tries in vain to be "different" for different's sake. For example, during many of the too-short "action" scenes, there's no music behind them, and maybe the camera is doing something self-consciously wacky. Sure, these things might be different, but there's a REASON no one has done them before. Because they don't work. Why did they not think of this? Answer: because they were trying to be clever. That's a big mistake when making a movie. Don't try to be clever. Try to be good.

Sure, there may be some blow-ups and shooting, but that doesn't an action movie make, and director Dotan, who also directed Diamond Dogs, continues his tradition of mediocrity. But he got better, because Diamond Dogs doesn't outright suck, like Warriors. Plus, weren't they aware of The Warriors (1979)? They really couldn't come up with another title? This movie besmirches the Baseball Furies and all they stand for.

The whole concept makes no sense: if these guys are insane, the army would never employ them to do serious jobs. For the concept of "mano-a-mano" fighting, check out The Final Sanction. It's a similar idea, but done in a much more entertaining manner. And probably on a much lower budget as well. Warriors is just overly serious and bleak. It's hard to imagine the filmmakers writing this and assuming the audience would really care. And when the pace is just like a lazy old river that kind of just rambles along with a total lack of verve or edge of any kind, you just can't help but check out.

While stuck in the thick of this movie, you think it will never end. Eventually it does, and you just feel cheated. It's a Nu-Image movie called "Warriors" with Gary Busey and Michael Pare. Naturally, fans will think this is an action movie. But we were cruelly tricked. This is deception; false advertising even. We can't forgive that. It's like director Dotan had never seen or heard of an action movie before, but was told to make one. He didn't have a grasp at all on how to make an effective action movie, or movie of any kind, really. He probably figured his director of photography would carry him through. But you can't slap a new coat of paint on a rotting house that's about to collapse into a pile of dust.

Finally, we'd just like to say that Warriors fits into the "Pushing Tin" theory of box/poster art. This theory (that we invented) states that any movie art that features gigantic faces of either the two leads (or in some cases, a massive face of just the main star) means the movie will not be very good. Because the level of creativity on display is inherent in the artwork. If the best anyone can do is one or two massive faces, that's a really bad sign. So red flag number one were the two box-filling mugs of Pare and Busey.

***SPOILER WARNING!! THIS IS A STINKER!!**

[artzau · 1/10 · 1 August 2001]

Ugh. My only regret is I can't get my money back. Busey has this stupified expression all through the film making you wonder if he had had sober or clean moment while making this dog. Michael Paré (who?) likewise goes through his motions like he were a wooden version of the tinman from the Oz books. Between him and Busey they're able to generate about as much emotion as two dogs barking at each other through closed windows from two cars parked next to each other in a noisy parking lot. Then, there're the girls (what girls?) The over-neglected wives generate about as much sympathy as two toadstools (for my part, I could understand quite easily why these guys stayed away at their jobs all the time). Wendii Fulford's hooker with the cute fanny who confronts Mr. Good Guy Underneath-That-Killer-Exterior Busey is about as believable as the Easter Bunny. And, that was the good part! Now, we come to the story which uses every time-worn(out) cliché: secret government plots, ruthless, uncaring "killing machines," mindless dedication to duty, chase scenes where the chaser knows where his quarry is going because he was trained by him and "knows how he thinks..." The other reviewer remarks this was bad, "...even for a Canadian movie." Well, I've seen some Canadian movies, Jesus of Montreal and Black Robe come to mind, that were quite decent. This film is best left on the rental shelf. In fact, even if you get it for free, the rental will still be overpriced.

Decent action thriller

[loulou1992 · 6/10 · 20 February 2022]

Ignore all the bad reviews, they are making sound like the worst film ever made... If you like Parè and Busey then it's an easy hour and half to pass the time... Better then reviews make out.