Classic American films: The Warriors – Walter Hill’s cult 1979 New York gang flick remains a single-minded achievement
- The story of a Coney Island street gang fighting to get home through other gangs and the police, The Warriors is dated but full of attitude
- The film reflects New York City in the 1970s at its most lawless and became a cult classic
In this regular feature series on some of the most talked-about films, we examine the legacy of classics, re-evaluate modern blockbusters, and revisit some of the most memorable lines in film. We continue this week with the 1979 film The Warriors .
It is likely to come as some surprise to fans of Walter Hill’s cult 1979 New York gang flick, but The Warriors was, in fact, based on a novel. Not only that, Sol Yurick’s 1965 book was itself based on Anabasis, a text by the Greek historian Xenophon, dating back to 370BC. Why the surprise? Because The Warriors, like much of Hill’s work (The Driver, Southern Comfort), is so lean, mean and pared to the bone it feels like it could only ever have been a film.
As a statement of the film’s single-mindedness, it begins with a camera strapped to the front of a moving subway train as a John Carpenter-style score throbs with menace. The message is clear: over the next 92 minutes, there will be no let up.
New York, then at the nadir of its lawlessness, looks like a ghost town, with good reason. Every gang in the city, including The Warriors from Coney Island, is converging on The Bronx to hear Cyrus (Roger Hill) speak. He is the warlord (leader) of the Gramercy Riffs, and he has a plan: there are 60,000 gang members in the city all fighting for “10 square feet of ground”, but only 20,000 police. Why don’t they all join forces to run the city? Why not indeed.
Luther (David Patrick Kelly), warlord of the aptly named Rogues, offers an answer by shooting Cyrus dead. Chaos ensues, The Warriors are blamed, and their leader Cleon (Dorsey Wright) is badly beaten. With Swan (Michael Beck) at the helm, the rest of the gang has what remains of the night to get back to Coney Island without getting killed. “When we get there,” Swan says, “that’s when we made it.”
What follows is a picaresque hunt across the blighted boroughs of the city. With their distinctive leather waistcoats (which they never even think about ditching), The Warriors stand out a mile, and every gang they encounter wants them dead. These include the Baseball Furies, who dress as mad batters, and the Hi-Hats, who self-style as mime artists, white make-up and all.