) and watched "Warrior" with the wife. We got it for a dollar at the Redbox. I was REALLY surprised by this being a good movie. The acting is really quite good all the way through. Nick Nolte delivers one of the best performances of his career, in my opinion.The thing that surprised me most about this movie was I expected a bang-em-up martial arts movie and I got a good drama. The second thing that surprised me was this was actually super accurate as far as the fighting goes. No cheesey fight sequences, no sloppy exchanges of punches on open opponents, no Rocky fighting with your hands at your waist, people got kicked in the legs, people got caught in knee bars. The fights sequences (all MMA) looked very realistic, to the point you could say "he doesn't have that arm bar" and the guy would get out of it. Several pro MMA fighters played extras in order to make this look real.
The amount of damage taken by some fighters was unrealistic like the main fighter getting the hell kicked out of him and not even bleeding despite being cut and swollen to #####, but I understand the need for your hero to be visibly recognizable.
As far as martial arts movies go I give it 5 stars. I'm not sure where they found real MMA athletes that could act or real actors that could fight.
Minor word of warning, I'd rate it a drama movie first and action movie second, despite about a third of it being dedicated to fighting.
I'm glad I slept with my cell phone last night. It allowed me to perform a 4:30 AM rescue of someone whose NYE wasn't exactly "low key". I'm losing count now of the number of times I've seen people home.