DVD Review: The Warriors (Ultimate Director's Cut)

The Warriors (1979), a low-budget, no-star film about futuristic New York gang warfare, may be director Walter Hill's best-known film, if not his best film, period. My little brother, who adores this movie, has been pestering me to see it for years, even though it didn't sound like the kind of film I usually enjoy. Well, neither did The Wild Bunch, and that movie turned out to be one of my favorites.

Paramount released a new DVD of The Warriors today (Oct. 4), promoting it as the "Ultimate Director's Cut". The DVD release is timed to coincide with the release of a video game based on The Warriors (also from Paramount, natch). A cynical person might wonder if the only real reason for the rerelease is to promote the game. However, I thought it was a good opportunity for me to see the movie for the first time.

If you haven't seen The Warriors, it has a very simple, almost mythic storyline: nine guys from a street gang in Coney Island find themselves stuck in the middle of The Bronx and attempt to get back to their home turf. Every gang in the area is out to get them, not to mention the cops. The movie is more than just an extended chase scene, though.

I was pleasantly surprised with The Warriors. It didn't have that low-budget feel to it, although it does feel appropriately stripped-down to its elements. In terms of a simple story executed well on a low budget, it reminded me a lot of El Mariachi. The actors were generally unknown at the time, but the acting was all fine and seemed quite natural. (The exception was Deborah Van Valkenburgh's first scene, in which her overacting and over-lipstick irritated me greatly, but she calmed down and the lipstick toned down as the movie progressed.)

The movie is almost timeless, except for a few visual clues that date it: hairstyles, language ("Can you dig it?"), and those scary prom clothes at the end. Fortunately these artifacts from 1979 don't detract from the movie. You can see a few actresses in their early days: Mercedes Ruehl plays the woman on the park bench, and that's the late great Lynne Thigpen as the radio deejay (although you only ever see her mouth).

The new version of The Warriors isn't a director's cut, per se. Walter Hill has filmed a short "introduction" explaining his ideas behind the changes. Since he'd always thought of this movie as being based in a comic-book world, he added comic-book-style transitions between the scenes. Instead of plain cuts or wipes, some scenes freeze and fade to a comic-book rendition and include comic-book titles ("Meanwhile, in Gramercy Park ...") before and after the wipes. The opening credits are preceded by a crawl and voiceover that draw a parallel between the movie and a Greek myth about soldiers far from home who are trying to get to the sea, narrated by Hill. Apparently, Hill wanted Orson Welles to record this voiceover and crawl for the original 1979 cut.

I watched parts of the 1979 cut on the previously released DVD and I have to say that the new comic-book edits don't do anything for me. They look too crisp and new compared to the transfer of the film. They're a little jarring at times and don't seem to quite fit. I realize that Hill probably had this idea for years, but unfortunately his timing sucks -- the comic-book titles reminded me too much of Sin City. The Greek-myth intro isn't necessary to establish the mythic feel of the movie, which reminded me a lot of The Odyssey. (I wonder how well a double-feature of The Warriors and O Brother, Where Art Thou would work.)

I also compared the transfer of the previously released DVD to the new release. I am not an audiophile or videophile by any means, but I couldn't see or hear a significant difference. It's not a bad transfer, although it seemed a little dark at times; but the movie is set at night, so that could certainly be intentional.

The new DVD has some special features, while previous DVD releases were pretty bare-bones. Besides the introduction from Walter Hill, the new DVD includes a four-part documentary about the making of the film with contemporary interviews from cast and crew, production stills, and (what I liked) the original sketches for costumes. Mostly it's the standard "Making of" stuff that seems to accompany most DVDs nowadays. I wish the special features had included the original opening scene from the film, which was later deleted because it was set in the daylight and didn't fit the general tone.

In fact, I wish Paramount had included both versions of the movie on the DVD: the original cut and the fancied-up comic-book version. The differences are slight but significant. It seems to be the current trend in DVD releases, such as The Blues Brothers. Would it have been that much more expensive? And while we're at it, the UK DVD to be released later this month has a nice version of the original poster art on its cover, as opposed to the stylized and cheesy-looking cover art on the US DVD.

Longtime purist fans of The Warriors may not like this "ultimate director's cut", but if you haven't seen the film before, I think the new transitions won't bother you. I don't want to buy the DVD, but I'd like to see the original cut of The Warriors in a good theater with a large audience.

And I don't want to see a remake, although I keep reading that Tony Scott (Top Gun, Domino) is working on one without assistance from the original filmmakers. Please don't.