[Inspector Abberline]

The Warriors (1979)

WTF you are shouting,Warriors Science fiction film? Well according to Walter Hill's introduction for the Directors cut,he says he always felt the film was set in the future ("Sometime in the future..." ) and he relates the story at the start as being akin to Battle of Cunaxa - 401 B.C,which in the Directors cut is shown as comic book frames.with Hill, narrating.And it has to be said that The Warriors would be a definite influence on a lot of the Italian apocalypse movie's,Bronx Warriors being an obvious contender. If The Warriors is set in the future,then it is one that resembles something along the lines of Soylent Green,Inner city streets that are over run with gangs,in fact I am hard pressed to remember anyone in the film that is not a gang member,apart from the odd train passengers you only really ever see gangs or cops.What is interesting that by the time this film came out,blaxploitation films were slowly on the decline,yet it has a firm foot in that genre,Gramercy Riffs are especially reminiscent of those films and the surge of kung fu films that hit the mid 1970's. Apart from maybe some of the gangs dress sense,there is a nice cross section of gang culture,some of the groups are all black others have inter racial mix like the The Turnbull AC’s,although the most iconic gang is of course the The Baseball Furies,they look the coolest out of all the gangs unfortunately they are not as cool when it comes to fighting,which is a shame as they make a very iconic bunch of villains. Adding to the atmosphere is Barry de Vorzon synthesizer score which from the very start with its main theme,has the feeling that someone is being chased and you better start running,probably the most surprising track is In The City by Joe Walsh,which plays over the end credits,but it works well as the film ends. Im sure most of us remember watching this back in the days of Video recorders,along with that other gang film The Wanderers,luckily both stand the test of time,mainly due to being such well made iconic movies.