“The Warriors” developed a cult status since its debut in 1979. With lines like “Can you dig it?!” and the infamous “Warriors, come out and play,” it was an original and entertaining film. The book by Sol Yurick does not capture that same magic, as it was a tedious read that was slower than the protagonists trying to get back to Coney Island.
My one complaint about the movie is its inclusion of white actors and white gangs. The gangs in the book were mostly black and Hispanic. Michael Beck, who plays Swan, the leader of the Warriors, is white, as opposed to the characters of the gang in the book.
Since the movie came out in the 1970s, I doubt political correctness was a driving force. Rather, I’m assuming it is to attract a wider audience for the movie. What’s funny is that if this movie came out today, we would still be dealing with the same issue. They would probably make Swan a person of color, but they would include more white gangs to avoid any racial accusations on the characters. Still, I wish they stayed true to the book and made it mostly a black and Hispanic cast.
I wish the movie kept the gang name to the Denominators. In the book, Yurick uses the Warriors as an umbrella term for all the gangs and its members. The name represents the toughness persona that each gang member embodies. By changing the name, it’s not a proper representation in the movie, where we as the audience view the other gangs more as caricatures compared to the Warriors gang.
What made the movie superior to the book was the constant action of running away and defending themselves from the other gangs. In the book, the Denominators were running away and riding trains, but we’re also with them getting lost and taking the wrong trains. There were brief moments of competition amongst themselves, such as the pissing contest, but the lack of excitement was too much to overcome.
The actors were also much older than their characters. In the book, they were all teenagers. However, I don’t mind casting 20-somethings to play the roles. A teenage actor playing Cyrus wouldn’t have the charisma of engaging a park full of gang members with a memorable speech. Even in the book, it didn’t work because Ismael ended up being killed not by the rogue Luther, but by various gang members who felt betrayed by him when the cops came.
It’s easy to see why the movie became a cult classic. With the energetic pacing, it provides action that the book misses. The book focuses too much on what the characters are thinking and disregards the stressful situations they put themselves in. The movie captures the intensity enough that you feel out of breath, just like the characters being chased.