The Warriors (1979)

October 10, 2018

1,758 3 minutes read

Film and Plot Synopsis

A turf battle of gigantic proportions looms in the neon underground of New York City. The armies of the night number 100,000, and there’s five of them for every police officer on the force. Tonight, they are after the Warriors; a street gang unfairly blamed for a rival gang leader’s death. As the members of the Warriors fight for their lives, they learn the meaning of loyalty.

‘The Warriors’ Movie Summary

The summary below contains many spoilers and feeble attempts at humor.

The Warriors takes place in a magical land called New York. Where each gang is assigned a fashion designer – while some designers are fashion forward with Broadway flare -like the Baseball Furies (a mix of Clockwork Orange, Damn Yankees, and Cats) other settle for overalls and roller skates (I am thinking that these designers really liked the closing scene in every Chips episode – except Ponch and John looked much tougher).

The story begins with the Warriors being invited to a New York gang convention pit on by the Gramercy Rifts – the Rifts are black guys with black belts – picture an army of Jim Kellys (not the Buffalo Bill quarterback) and you have the Gramercy Rifts. The Warriors represent Coney Island and are made up of white guys (including Dexter’s dad), blacks guys, and Jews. They became the gang of Coney Island because Disneyland was too tough to conquer and Dollyworld is too gay. Isn’t being a badass gang from Coney Island like being a dangerous cage fighter trapped in Shirley Temple’s body – like a Shirley “Temple of Doom” (which I believe is a name of a band).

So they go to the Rift’s convention to hear Cyrus. Cyrus is basically the Barack Obama of the gang world.

Cyrus wants all the gangs to form one big mega gang and take over New York City – with him as the leader – CAN YOU DIG IT? Well, Hollywood can’t dig it sucka – after all, if Cyrus pulls this off he will be a powerful black guy (this is way before Denzel – I mean we are still over a decade away from Driving Miss Daisy). Some Ramone wanna-bees known as the “Rouges” and their leader named Luther, decide to shoot Cyrus instead of killing him in a dream. Luther blames the Warriors, since one of their members is the only eyewitness to him shooting Cyrus multiple times in an amphitheater.

The Rifts decide to kill the Warriors. They take out the first Warrior with a deadly barrage of elbows. The Rifts organize and have all the gangs begin to hunt the Warriors via a DJ who took some time off from finding Carmen San Diego.

The Warriors believe the only way to survive is to get back to Coney Island where they can defend themselves with corn dogs and cotton candy. The only way back to Coney Island is by subway and each subway station is filled with both cartoonish gangs and inept cops.

During this journey some Warriors die by making the director angry or trying to rape women. Halfway through the journey the Warriors pick up a whore names Nipples, played by Jackie Rush. She falls in love with the Warriors after they call her a whore and threaten to pull a train in her.

The Warriors fight their way past the Baseball Furies and murderous lesbians (who prove that are better at licking each other than licking the Warriors). The last gang the Warriors take down are the “Punks” – the Punks are a group of tuffs sporting overalls and roller skates. The Warriors have no problem taking them down in the subway bathroom; which is odd because the last guy who followed me into the bathroom wearing overall and roller skates did not want fight.

The Warriors make it back to Coney just in time to find out that Luther and the Rogues have Blitzkrieg Bopped there to meet them. Luther invites the Warriors to come out and play. Luther plans on shooting the seven remaining Warriors with a six shooter; however, Swam throws a switch blade and stabs Luther in the arm. Just then the Rifts all show up with Hockey sticks – which means some hockey team is dead. The Rifts now that Luther is responsible for Cyrus’ death and plan to avenge Cyrus by elbowing Luther to death. The Rifts apologize to Warriors and tell them that they are not too bad for a group of brothers, Jews, and honkeys.

The movie ends with the Warriors walking down the beach again reminding us of how gay east coast gangs really are.