The Warrior Class

 (2004)

by Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

The underlying structural basis of this film is a dry legal procedural. Our hero is a young lawyer who's so green that he's never questioned a witness before. He has a remarkable success in his first try, however, so he gets assigned to a big-league case, a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against a major corporation in which he will be on the corporation's defense team. The case itself doesn't involve all that much drama. In fact, the major legal issue hinges on a technical point of law, whether a key employee was dishonest or incompetent. If he was dishonest, the corporation itself was the victim, and is not liable. If he was incompetent, the corporation is legally liable and loses the case.

 Yawn. Argumentation about technicalities have never made for a great spectator sport. I was on the debate team in high school and college, and I noticed that we never had any cheerleaders at our tournaments.

In order to give the case a bit of color, the writer/director made the defense team's key witness a junkie, and therefore unstable, undependable, and in need of constant supervision. You're still bored? Well, then, the young defense attorney falls in love with her and, oh yeah, she's also the estranged wife of the world's biggest crime boss, who doesn't want her to testify. Talk about stretching the concept of "economy of characters." If she had also been the opposing attorney they could have done a two-character play like Sleuth.

I suppose the author thought the material was still too colorless, so he added some bizarre background elements like a yard full of glow-in-the dark swordfish carcasses. He also made the corporation's CEO an ex-general who wears an eyepatch and wields a samurai sword in his office. When the general first sees how young his attorney is, he says "welcome to the warrior class" and gives the lad his own super-sharp sword. Considering the principle of scriptwriting economy, I'll bet you can guess how the mob boss will meet his death.

By attempting to gussy up a too-dry legal case, the author went overboard and made the whole thing just plain silly. You can do this kind of thing and make a fun movie if you go all the way with it and take it over-the-top, ala Luc Besson, but this film held back from that commitment and tried to stay in touch with reality. In so doing, it ended up like an Oxygen Network version of a Tarantino film, filled the best-scrubbed, best-behaved junkies, hookers, and mobsters ever seen on film.

The film was lensed three years ago before its release, and the investors held out some hope of a theatrical release based on the possible emergent stardom of the lead, Anson Mount, who is a very handsome guy and very likeable on camera. Mount's star status never arrived, so the film languished in limbo until finally going straight to DVD, which is the fate it deserved based on its merit.

 

DVD INFO

* widescreen anamorphic

* no meaningful features

 

 

 

 

 

THE CRITICS AND ACADEMIES

Variety called it "by-the-numbers"

THE PEOPLE

   
? IMDB summary (few votes, not meaningful.)

THE BOX OFFICE

No theatrical release.

NUDITY REPORT

Erica Leerhsen had two nude scenes but kept herself as completely covered as possible. In one of the scenes she seemed to be wearing tape over her tiny breasts. In the other she kept her hands on her breasts at all times! Her bum is seen clearly but  the nudity is not very satisfying at all.

 

Our Grade:

If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to read the explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by our definition, a C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is a:

C-

I may be a bit generous with that grade, but I gave the film some latitude. Although the film gave me little pleasure, I did watch it without resorting to the fast-forward button, thereby fairly qualifying it as "minimally watchable," our C- requirement.