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"Peaceful Warrior" movie review |
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Written by Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune
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Friday, 30 March 2007 |
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PEACEFUL WARRIOR
2 stars (out of 5)
Cast: Scott Mechlowicz, Nick Nolte, Amy Smart
Director: Victor Salva.
Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.
Industry rating: PG-13 for sensuality, sex references and accident
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Nobody at either of two movie studios involved knew what to do with "Peaceful Warrior," a slow and quirky "Karate Kid" movie set in college gymnastics. So Universal gave away opening weekend tickets to it at Best Buy and elsewhere, all over the country.
Would anyone have seen it, otherwise? It's a competitive gymnast's meandering "spiritual journey" to Destination Obvious. And the guy giving directions is that gymnast's own Mr. Miyagi, an inscrutable service station owner he nicknames "Socrates."
Socrates impresses gymnast Dan by appearing to leap small buildings in a single bound. He knows the difference between knowledge and wisdom, between "grease monkey" and sage, between Zen and Buddhism.
"This is a service station. We offer service. There is no higher calling."
Naturally, he's played by Nick Nolte.
Socrates, or "Soc," as Dan Millman (Scott Mechlowicz of "Mean Creek") calls him, works in an ancient Texaco near the Cal (Berkley) campus. He starts to train the vain, callous and careless Dan - not for the Olympics but for life.
That's training that will come in handy when Dan has "the big injury."
In this "inspired by a true story" (based on Millman's book) the may-not-exist teacher teaches the kid, the kid learns lessons, a girl (Amy Smart) picks up on the spiritual guy Dan is becoming, and all of this is somehow squeezed into two interminable hours.
At least seeing Nolte in this hallucinatory sensai role is a trip.
Director Victor Salva ("Powder," "Jeepers Creepers") put more emphasis on pretty visuals - pools of light in the gym, shadows in the world's darkest Texaco station, perfectly-rusted wrecked cars - than on pacing or story coherence. The performances are sharp and subdued, and some scenes - a suicide attempt with Zen implications - pop.
There's always a temptation to try and read extra meaning into Salva's movies, seeing as how he served time as a sex offender. There isn't any extra level of meaning here, with all the homilies about living in the moment, emptying one's mind and such.
But every film Salva makes has controversy shackled to it, which begs the question, why is he still working? He's not good enough to make anybody forget that.
And when you have to give a away tickets to his movies and hope, hope, hope nobody will mention the director's prison record, who needs the hassle? "Peaceful Warrior" would have been a hard sell in far abler, less sullied hands. | Only registered users can write comments.
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