Considering the 'Consider' Campaign: Warrior

Throw on your fur and gaze sinisterly by a swimming pool, because those collectible toys of Oscar season, the "Consider" campaigns posters, are busting out. The first one up for inspection is the campaign for Warrior, the gritty MMA drama starring Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, and Nick Nolte. Let's take a look at the wordy one-sheet and see if it makes us feel any differently about its positioning in the Oscar index.

So, no. Bye, everyone!

All right, let's dwell: The poster certainly does a good job of reminding us that we enjoyed Warrior overall -- Nick Nolte's performance is indeed heartfelt and fearless, and the balance of "human frailty" and "triumph" was a pungent trail mix, no doubt. But I feel the same way about Warrior that I do about another September release with a 7-letter "W" name -- Weekend. Both are solid films, and if we're being honest, Weekend is the better one. Unfortunately, both movies are proud, but ultimately unassuming showings in familiar genres. Warrior is a boxing flick with one more protagonist than we usually allow, and Weekend is a whispery romance that's both incisive and sexually frank, though it lacks those indispensable "Oscar moments" (and an Oscar push too).

But if anyone from Warrior can exhume the movie's energized machismo and still nab a fifth-place nomination, Nolte is the man. Comeback stories make for unassailable Oscar kudos -- the Academy's always looking for ways to be liked and inoffensive -- though Christopher Plummer is dominating the old-timer niche with his shoo-in performance in Beginners. As such, I enjoyed Warrior, but I don't see it finding a way to overtake any of the standing and upcoming powerhouses.

Consider It...: Mostly KO'd.