Perhaps one of my greatest weaknesses as a movie watcher is my unwillingness to watch a movie that I have not seen. Horrible I know, but I always seem to want to watch a movie that I’ve seen 30 times over a movie that I know nothing about. This plays into the fact that I’m afraid of both new experiences and exploring the unknown. I enjoy the comfort of the familiar and to this day will only order the same thing from my favorite Chinese food restaurant. Yes I know I’m boring and predictable, but it’s just so nice and cozy there. Of course one must realize that every movie I am comfortable with at some point started out as a never before seen one. Therein lies my stubbornness.

At first I struggled with the very idea of picking a favorite movie and talking about it. There were so many and picking one was like deciding which child of mine I would want to live, while the rest perished in the bowels of Satan. But then it hit me--The Warriors! A film that was unique in that I had resisted to watch it because of my very same aversion for the new and unexplored. But a film that had instantly become my favorite after only one viewing.

Back in the dark ages, aka before I ever saw The Warriors, I couldn’t see myself liking it because nothing about it seemed particularly interesting. Gangs? Bleck! In fact, my aversion to the film before watching was so great, that I had mentally decided to hate it before ever pushing the play button on the remote. I decided that The Warriors was just a movie that guys pretended to like to seem cool. I had not however, foreseen the possibility that The Warriors was actually one of the greatest stories ever told.

If you don’t know, The Warriors is based on the novel of the same name by Sol Yurick. It begins with representatives from all the gangs across New York meeting up in the Bronx to listen to gang leader Cyrus’ plan for the future. There has been a truce instated where no one is allowed to be packed or bring weapons--in short no fighting between gangs is allowed. By Cyrus’ calculations if this truce is applied to all the gangs in the New York, that equals 60,000 of them and only 20,000 cops. Can you dig it? That means New York could easily be run by gangs. Hooting and hollering commences but is then broken when Luther, the token crazy person of the gang The Rogues, shoots Cyrus with a gun. In the chaos that ensues, Luther points to one of the Warriors claiming that he saw him shoot Cyrus. The Warriors flee and before long come to the conclusion that the truce has been broken, and they are miles away from home with no weapons to keep them safe, and those 60,000 something gangs after them.

There are many things that make The Warriors a masterpiece. From the idea that the story is modeled after the Anabasis, to the eerie backdrop of Coney Island in the opening moments, to the film’s uncanny ability to make you sympathize with gang members, the list could go on and on. Sure, the wide array of different gangs, equally entertaining and comical are for many what drives this film home, but for me it’s all about the Warriors. The title says it all doesn’t it? It’s not called Gangs of New York,

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