AMERICAN WARRIOR - Mark Reviews Movies

American Warrior, Quiver Distribution

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | August 28, 2025

You want to root for this little movie about a man trying to find redemption in his personal life and a second chance in his professional one, but the movie itself doesn't make that easy. American Warrior is equally grounded in its main character and in the formula of an underdog sports movie, and the story ultimately takes too many shortcuts and relies on the sports angle to make its big points about the character at its center.

He's Jai (Vishy Ayyar), a janitor at a mixed martial arts gym. He was recently released from prison for a crime he won't talk about but that turns out to be quite the unlikely one, considering his skills at fighting. At the moment, Jai doesn't have much of anything—an ex-wife who won't accept his repeated flower deliveries, a family that mostly won't speak to him, a job that is quite the step down from his previous career.

All of that changes when Jai stops and subdues a robber at a local convenience store. Some people witness the takedown and record it, and the video of some random guy acting so bravely and performing a pretty skillful hold makes Jai a viral online sensation. It's enough for his boss (played by Verónica Falcón), the gym's owner, to offer him a spot in an upcoming MMA tournament.

The rest of screenwriters Gustavo Martin, who also directed, and Matt Anthony's narrative is basically split in two. On one side, there's Jai's preparation for the tourney, calling upon his old friend and former MMA coach Dennis (Danny Trejo), who now teaches at a college, to train him for the event. Jai is in his 40s, hasn't fought in any official capacity in many years, and doesn't seem too enthusiastic about the prospect, either.

Some of that last part might just be Ayyar's performance, which too often mistakes a blank stare for understatement, and for a movie about a sport that's surely filled with some larger-than-life personalities, there surely must be some professional fighters with some hidden acting chops waiting to shine. Ayyar has some moments of sincerity here, but his additional role as a producer on the project almost certainly had some sway over the casting.

The training stuff here is exactly what one anticipates from it. The coach offers some thoughts on life and resilience in addition to tips about how Jai can best take down his opponents in the ring.

As it turns out, Jai's first opponent in the tournament will be Marcus (Andrew Gray, who does show a bit of rough charm in a small role, speaking of actors with some fighting experience who could have played the lead). Marcus, by the way, is also the robber whom Jai took down, which is quite the coincidence and a potential, if accidental, indictment of how the world of this sport treats its athletes and its own image. Why is this guy, who is a promising up-and-comer with plenty of wins under his belt, reduced to robbing local shops, and why would any governing body overseeing the sport let someone who committed a crime, captured on video for the world to see, let him compete in the first place?

It's easy enough, perhaps, to simply accept these contrivances as a source of necessary conflict for a sports movie. That part of the story is the less interesting one, anyway, so as it goes through the motions, there's the other half of the narrative.

That revolves around Jai's personal life, as he meets and starts dating co-worker Melissa (Taylor Treadwell), starts to see some way out of the hole he's currently in, and is given a chance, thanks to his sister Priya (Suleka Mathew), to reunite and reconcile with his estranged family members. There's a bittersweet quality to this side of the story, as Jai clings to the failed promises and pains of the past, while keeping new potential at an arm's length. It doesn't help that his relatives still hold a grudge and look down on where he is now, as his mother (played by Ranjita Chakravarty) will only speak to and look at her son to insinuate how little she cares to have Jai around her.

All of that builds in an intriguing way, only for the third act to allow the sports angle to take over the rest of the story. It yet again goes through the motions, including a climactic match that looks, with its pulled punches and awkward editing, too staged to be believable. American Warrior is on to something here, especially when the movie focuses on the protagonist's fight outside the ring—either to hold on to the past or find a way to a different future. With a more convincing merging of the story's two modes and a more confident leading actor, there might have been something here, instead of just potential.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products