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On the surface, The Warriors is the story of a Manhattan street gang – called The Warriors - forced to clear themselves of a crime they didn't commit. The film is set in a semi-futuristic version of New York where garishly clad rival street gangs rule the Five Boroughs amidst an uneasy city-wide truce. Called on to attend a peaceful meeting of all city gangs the Warriors send emissaries, as do scores of other clubs – all unarmed. Once there, they're addressed by Cyrus, the leader of Manhattan's largest syndicate. Cool and charismatic, Cyrus briefly delivers a thoroughly memorable monologue in which he suggests that all gangs unite as one massive army of opportunity. Outnumbering the police, they will be able to operate unopposed in the city for generations to come. Cyrus' ideas are well received, but one rival gang has other ideas, creating a violent disturbance and destroying the truce. They frame the Warriors for the disaster and soon the police, along with every gang in the city are in pursuit of them. Outnumbered, on the run and with Cyrus' syndicate coordinating the manhunt (with the help of a seductively snarky radio deejay and her ironic playlist), the Warriors race against time through the bowels of Manhattan to their home turf, desperate to turn up the evidence they need to clear their names.

Even though The Warriors is an action film, it's no accident that I drew a parallel with musical theater earlier. It wasn't just because of the story's inherent symbolism; elements of The Warriors actually remind me of West Side Story, at least in one way. Despite the fact that the film takes place in the brutal world of inner city street gangs, the level of vice and violence apparent in it are minimized. Guns are uncommon, drugs are almost nonexistent and most confrontations are resolved using a combination of fists, harsh language and retro-Bronze Age diplomacy. This is because The Warriors isn't really a story about gangs any more than West Side Story was. And where West Side Story was an obvious adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, The Warriors is a movie version of a novel that drew its inspiration from the ancient story Anabasis.

Written by the Greek warrior Xenophon, The Warriors is the tale of a badly outnumbered Greek army stranded behind Persian lines, forced to fight its way home without reinforcements or supplies. Next to the legend of the Spartans at Thermopylae, it is perhaps the best known story of courage in Greek antiquity. Largely lost on audiences in the late '70s was the fact that The Warriors wasn't a gratuitous narrative on street violence, it was a fantasy about bravery in the face of insurmountable odds and valor in the face of treachery. But the film was also irreverently subversive and very visually unconventional so not surprisingly; it wasn't exactly a commercial success. But in the intervening years, it has acquired a devoted following and proven itself to be a more forward thinking project than even its creators had envisioned.

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