Delayed Reaction: The Warriors

The Pitch: Gangs of New York. Not the Scorsese movie. It's just a movie about gangs, in New York.

How I Came Into It: It's been in my Netflix queue for years with no urgency. After a friend's confusion between it and West Side Story, it got bumped up a few spots. I also wanted to see how much of "Modern Warfare" really took from that movie.

Why I Saw It: This is a cool movie. It's specific to a time and aesthetic, but it's still cool. The soundtrack is pretty great and I like how bare bones the story is. There were clearly some budgetary limitations which they worked around pretty well. I spent at least a week with "Warriors, come out to plaa-i-aay" stuck in my head, so that's some effective ad-libbing. The fun thing about cult movies is that they aren't perfect movies, but they get something so right that people can't let it go. The visual style and zip is what keeps The Warriors going.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: The reason a movie is a cult movie rather than a classic is because there's a lot of it that doesn't work. In this case, the dialogue is painfully clunky, the acting is stilted, and it's surprisingly dull, given the premise. And, like any good cult movie, I don't really care. That's all part of its charm.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend