Walter Hill's hip, super-stylized action film unfurls in a dystopian near-future, when various gangs control New York City. Each gang sports a unique moniker ('The Men in Blue,' 'The Baseball Furies,' 'The Rogues'), with a costume underscoring its "theme"; each, in turn, is also responsible for one geographic borough. Hill sets up the landscape as a massive, violent playground - replete with bridges, vacant subway tunnels, parks, abandoned buildings and the like, all ripe for exploration and adventure. Within this framework, the titular Coney Island gang decides to surmount every obstacle in its path to make it to the Bronx, for a city-wide meeting of rival gangs; en route, a black female radio DJ reports on their progress, in the style of a baseball announcer. The Warriors' quest grows decidedly more complex and dangerous, however, when the psychotic leader of a rival gang, The Rogues (
David Patrick Kelly of
Dreamscape) assassinates the head of the city's foremost gang, but The Warriors are pegged as culpable. This sends the gang fleeing through the labyrinthine city, with every thug in Manhattan in vicious, homicidal pursuit. Throughout, Hill keeps the onscreen violence absurd, exaggerated and unrealistic, downplaying death to an extreme degree; despite this fact, the film sparked a massive amount of controversy and an ugly backlash for allegedly inciting violence and destruction in several theaters where it initially played.
James Remar,
Michael Beck and
Deborah Van Valkenburgh lead the ensemble cast. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide