The Warriors (1979)

Anyone expecting gritty realism will be disappointed, because Hill is offering something better: shooting entirely on NY locations at night, he has transformed the city into a phantasmagoric labyrinth of weird tribes in fantastic dress and make-up who move over (and under) the streets as untouched as troglodytes by the civilisation sleeping around them. Mixing ironic humour, good music, and beautifully photographed suspense, it's one of the best of 1979.

The Warriors is a deeply silly movie. Its gangs are ridiculous comic-book figures. Still, director Walter Hill treats its world with total seriousness. Bleak synthesizer drones thrum and throb. The streets glow with slickly inky-black greasiness. Nobody smiles. It’s so awesome.

The Warriors is a visual feast. Director Hill fills the frame with vibrant colors, bright lights, and nonstop motion. The uniforms of the various gangs are unique, funny, fearsome, and more than a bit theatrical. The exciting fight scenes are brilliantly choreographed, and instead of focusing on the violence, Hill concentrates on pure movement (most of the cast were actually dancers).

Hill, shooting by night and on location together with his OOP Andrew Laszlo, gives the film dazzling style. New York's oil-slicked streets become a labyrinth lit by pools of reflecting light, both scary and strangely beautiful - grimy realism it isn't. It also manages to humanize the gang-bangers to a surprising extent, illustrating the material and emotional poverty that forces them onto the streets in the first place.

The Warriors is a comic book morality tale, Westside Story crossed with A Clockwork Orange. The movie is so perversely fascinating in a variety of ways that it’s too bad the imagination demonstrated wasn’t used for something better than what turns out to be one more exploitation film in which the audience is encouraged to cheer the sights and sounds of mayhem.