Peaceful Warrior
Starring: Scott Mechlowicz, Nick Nolte, Amy Smart
Director: Victor Salva
Genre: Drama, Adaptation, and Sports
Rated: PG-13 for sensuality, sex references and accident scenes.
Duration: 2hrs
Details: Arrogant, talented Dan Millman seems to have the perfect college life: a stunning gymnast’s body of incredible strength, handsome looks, good grades, plenty of money and a shot at the Olympic qualifiers in men’s gymnastics. Still, Dan wakes up almost nightly from terrifying nightmares and odd visions he can’t explain or dismiss. One night, awakened by yet another nightmare, Dan goes for a run through his foggy neighborhood and comes upon a well-lit service station. Behind the counter, an old man seemingly moves without regard for space or time. One moment, Dan is paying for his snacks, the next the old man is on the roof of the station. Stunned by the impossibility, Dan begs the old man, whom he instinctually names Socrates, to share the secret of his abilities in order to achieve his goal of Olympic Gold.

My Review: This story says it was inspired by true events. I’ll have to assume those true events were The Karate Kid and Star Wars. This story is nearly a complete knock off of The Karate Kid. You’ve got the dedicated athlete, unfortunately it’s male gymnastics in this case, who takes on a spiritual and athletic mentor. Here the crane kick scene really becomes the second half of the movie though as the star of the story must overcome a leg injury to win it all. Star Wars gets worked in as Nick Nolte plays a non-green, non-small, but nearly equally as old looking, philosophical lead who goes by Socrates. At 2 hours this movie drags on and on relentlessly with little reward for the audience. The story wraps up nicely around 1.5 hours, but instead decides to press on in some sort of masochistic fashion.

Nick Nolte does such a great job in his role that you’ll begin to wonder why he barely has any work anymore. Oh yeah, that might be why. Despite his character being a rip off of Yoda he’s enjoyable to watch in his well delivered character. Without Nolte this movie would have been a complete loss. The lead character goes to Eurotrip’s Scott Mechlowicz and after such an enjoyable experience with the previous film I’m going to hope he was handed a bad setup. Here Mechlowicz plays the “rebel without a cause” character a bit too strong and sadly becomes a completely replaceable part of the cast. When I saw Amy Smart had been included in the lineup I was looking forward to what turned out to be an extremely side character with only minutes of screen time.

If you enjoy extremely slow and drawn out inspirational athletic movies then Peaceful Warrior may be right up your alley. I went into this one knowing it hadn’t received great reviews, but I tend to enjoy character studies so I thought there was potential. I’ll give it points for the acting and visual deliveries. However, I just don’t think the average movie goer will get too much out of this one though as we’ve seen it all before. The only changes are the venue and the actors. Proceed with caution.

My rating: 2.5/5 stars
High point: Nolte’s performance as Yoda
Low point: Male gymnastics

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