A burst your bubble movie review

I know many people saw The Warriors when it first came out or saw it in their youth and they hold it in high regard as a kick ass seminal film in their personal pantheon of movies, but having just seen it for the first time mere minutes ago, hoo boy, it stinks.

A messianic gang leader in New York city calls a gang truce so he can bring all the gangs together to hear his plan about how they can take over the city.  In the middle of his speech a gang punk shoots and kills him and then blames his murder on a rival gang.  Turns out the gang he blames it on is from the other side of town and now they have to get home with all the other gangs in the city gunning for them.  The Warriors battle their way across a strangely depopulated NYC in the middle of the night.  Along the way they fight some of the least frightening gangs ever, pick up a smokin' hot chick who's little breasts defy the laws of gravity, have make out session with a girl gang called The Lizzies, fight Dexy's Midnight Runners in a subway restroom, and avoid the cops.

Oh my gawd, this film stinks.  In the 1970's, and I guess still today, it's fashionable to see NYC as a cesspit of violence and awfulness, and this film does that in spades.  It's someone who's never been to NYC's idea of how NYC is.  They read about the murders and violence and the gangs, so it all must be true!  But of course it's not.

The gang summit was a huge joke.  All those different gangs in matching outfits, each one more ridiculous than the last.  It was funny to see how they all got whipped into a frenzy but just as quickly lost it when the cops showed up.  Yeah, that's the way to take over a city, way to show your commitment for a split second then run like a bunch of chickens.

Also what got me was how in shape they all were.  I know gang banging is a young man's game but shit, all these guys ran with the stamina of marathon runners when chased.  And when they fought, none of them got hardly a mark or scratch on them.

This film was a white guy's paranoid fantasy film.  It's the penultimate 'the big city is  going to hell in a handbasket' film.  The acting is atrocious, the score annoying, and slang is howlingly funny.  I recommend it for laughs only.  I never saw it back in the day, but I'm pretty sure if you did and you watched it again now, you'd see it doesn't hold up well at all.