Throwback Thursday: "The Warriors"

Despite opening credits only slightly shorter than the Superbowl halftime show, The Warriors begins with an interesting idea: a few thousand gang members all dressed to the nines come together and try to make peace...only the guy proposing it gets shot.
You can guess what happens next.
Warriors is from 1979, so despite the "some time in the future" setting, this future has feathered hair, pay phones, and tape decks. The cast is riddled with memorable faces from today's tv and movie actors - just younger.
A common element I've noted in some of these throwback films is a purpose and a passion to the movements. When the actors are running (something The Warriors do a lot of as they're chased all over NYC) they are literally hauling ass. When was the last time you saw a modern action hero who looked like a Kenyan on Redbull?
No, they water down lots of modern chase scenes with slo-mo and close-ups - which can be great - but few things make you feel like the scene is real like the level of earnest some throwback actors show.
More to the film, Warriors sports an array of well-choreographed fight scenes with some sequences looking half Bruce Lee kung-fu flick and half Clockwork Orange. They are quite believable, and the perpetual miasma of violence and aggression fleshes out a lot about the main characters that would have taken lots of dialogue otherwise.
The film progresses by way of a comic book read Star Wars style at the beginning, with scene segues appearing like panels flipping by; the thick, white swipes between other scenes completes the innovative and interesting feature.
It's also nice that the music is well-timed and appropriate, not falling into the trap of overwhelming the audience with contemporaneous music and hurting a film's future-proofing.
All in all, Warriors is a throwback worthy of renting and checking out for yourself. There's nothing too gruesome, violent, or sexual to exclude viewers, either. I'm not saying leave it on as a babysitter, but there are worse "just because" movies out there so far as crowd pleasing goes.