2. Paddy Conlon - Warrior
Were introduced to Paddy as a seemingly nice old man and we cant help but feel bad for him when we see his two adult sons, Tommy and Brendan treat him with a callous disregard. We later find out that Paddy was an abusive alcoholic who drove his family away many years ago and created an almost irreparable rift between the son who stayed with him and the other who went with their mother. Paddy spends the film paying his penance, he has made the effort to get clean and sober but his boys find it hard to forgive him for the years of misery he caused them. As Tommy and Brendan fight their way through a million dollar MMA tournament, Paddy is the underlying emotional lynchpin to their journey. He is delighted when Tommy asks for his training to take on the best, but his younger son says outright that this is not an olive branch. After being repeatedly pushed away by Tommy during the course of the film, Paddy relapses and drinks himself half to death in a hotel room. This scene is particularly effective and hits you hard because up until that point you've never seen Paddy drink, it has always been inferred or remembered in the film. To watch him try so hard and then collapse in on himself is difficult and Nolte's portrayal is nothing short of incredible. It takes this dramatic scene for Tommy to realise how hard his father was trying for him and the effect continued rejection had on him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFmv0usxJQc Paddy is gradually warmed to by his sons but the relationship is far from rebuilt by the end of the film. The two brothers take each other one and in the middle of the cage, in the most strange circumstances imaginable they forgive each other for their own transgressions against one another. Paddy looks on with a smile as Brendan helps his beaten brother from the octagon and were left to wonder what will happen between the three next. The amazing performances given by Nolte, Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton are what makes the film and strangely I felt that although the action centres on the brothers, the real protagonist was always watching from the sidelines, his redemption driving things forward.