I remember the morning before I moved to Montreal. My dad walked into my bedroom and sat on my bed, right next to me. His face was twisted with the displeasure of the task at hand. He said : ''Don't go there, It's not nice. There is still time to change your mind and there are nicer places and better colleges. Don't go out there, the people are crazy.'' Of course, I didn't listen to my old man. Whoever was the art director for THE WARRIORS knew as much about large cities and street gangs as my dad did (i.e. nothing at all). But sometimes it's not such a bad thing. Creating something memorable doesn't always mean seizing the zeitgeist. Sometimes the best things are completely off their rocker, like THE WARRIORS.
So there is this New York street gang meeting where Cyrus, leader of the most powerful gang in the city, proposes a truce between the factions that would allow them to control the city. Luther (the awesome David Patrick Kelly), leader of The Rogues, decides to get rid of the ambitious Cyrus and shoots him from the crowd. He places the blame on the Coney Island located Warriors, who now have to suffer the wrath of every gang desiring to keep the truce alive (i.e. just about everybody) on their way back home. It's a long night and sure is a long way back to Coney Island, filled with train transfers, industrious cops and colouful and greedy street gangs, wanting a piece of The Warriors to appease the Gods of the Night.
You have to put THE WARRIORS in context to appreciate the scope of its paranoia. The movies owes its wild art direction to the socioeconomic context of 1970s America and the Frank Lucas years in New York more than it owes to the Sol Yurick novel it is based on *. Before being afraid of foreigners, Occidental culture was afraid of its own youth it depicted like wild and soulless beasts. Young men had nothing better to do with their time than prowl the streets in packs and terrify upstanding productive citizens. THE WARRIORS portrays youth in the same exact way movies like DIRTY HARRY and DEATH WISH did, like something out of control, speaking a language foreign to respectable people. Back then, people were only afraid to get killed on the street, they weren't afraid of the reasons why. Different eras, different problems, I suppose.
THE WARRIORS' street cred took a drop right at that moment.
THE WARRIORS is nonetheless very enjoyable. Anything that ventures so far into its own vision, no matter how warped it can be, is bound to be fun. Sol Yurick's original story is supposed to be loosely based on Xenophon's ANABASIS, yet the movie is more like ANABASIS meets WEST SIDE STORY. Gang uniforms are more like elaborate costumes that scream ''LOOK AT ME, I AM A STREET GANG MEMBER OR MAYBE JUST SLIGHTLY DERANGED. ARREST ME BEFORE I RAPE AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER FOR MY PERSONAL AMUSEMENT. ** '' I enjoyed the absurdly paranoid use of radio airwaves too. That was straight out of a demented dystopian concept where messages and taunt are delivered by the DJ of the radio station controlled by the largest gang in town. Not sure if the idea originates from Walter Hill's movie or from Sol Yurick's novel, but it punctuated THE WARRIORS with a touch of humour that helped putting the film in perspective.
THE WARRIORS is a lot of fun. It did not age in relevancy, but it aged well nonetheless. It already had a longer life span than most movies can hope for and it should keep being discussed as a seminal work of the late seventies in the future. It doesn't draw a realistic portrait of street gangs at all, but it does draw a fascinating portrait of the climate of fear and alienation from the youth of the era. THE WARRIORS meant to scare people like my dad, but its complacent and ridiculous portrait of gang culture mixed with Walter Hill's post-apocalyptic, wasteland portrait of a late seventies New York created something unique and most important, inimitable. You cannot shoot a movie like THE WARRIORS unironically anymore and that's how it will keep beating father time and still be enjoyed in 10, 15, maybe another 30 years from now.
* The Wikipedia article does a great job highlighting the several differences between the novel and the movie.
** That's another thing with 70s movies. They are fascinated with rape.
