Peaceful Warrior Movie Review

I saw Lionsgate Films' new movie, Peaceful Warrior at a Cinemark last night, March 31^st. I hadn't actually heard a thing about the movie until earlier in the week I received an e-mail offering free movie tickets to it. I could've chosen up to 10, but I was skeptical and figured I'd try four, for my wife and I, a friend and his new girlfriend. The advertisement said to expect big crowds and get my tickets early, so I did, though I remained skeptical. One of my wife's co-workers also got free tickets, so I was starting to believe it might be a big, or at least crowded, event. I searched for the preview on the internet and saw that it was obviously marketed as an uber-metaphysical sports triumph story. That didn't assure me any, but I was still surprised when, arriving at the theater, we not only found seats, but could've sat practically anywhere we wanted. The theater was less than half full, even on Saturday night of opening weekend, and even when loads of free movie tickets were available for the taking.

Well, let me get on to the movie itself. Other than standard pre-credits, they flashed, "Based on True Events" across the screen while the movie began. I'll get back to that later. It started off with some fairly decent cinematography of gymnastic feats but when the acting began it also had an equally high level of cheesiness. I was immediately impressed with the athletic skill of these gymnasts/actors, but my friend and I also quickly decided that they must've hired a gymnast to act rather than an actor and a gymnast stunt double. You could tell the guy doing flips and spins on the rings was the same guy who delivered his lines with such unbelievable mediocrity. He and his gymnast friends were obviously full of themselves, but their acting was of such a poor quality that it was hard to believe them, even as common a situation as that is in real life. The truth is, after about 15-30 minutes into the movie, the acting seems to get better. It's by no means consistently believable as the cheesiness rears its laughable head at least every 15 minutes, but it does get better.

Well, the dramatic conflict arises in the movie when the main character, Dan Millman's (played by Scott Mechlowicz), inability to sleep at night leads him to the gas station of one very enigmatic full-service attendant. He sees the man do something very bizarre and unbelievable and returns the following night to figure it out. The attendant (played by Nick Nolte), who Millman names Socrates, becomes more enigmatic but manages to get the point across that Millman needs to change his life if he really wants to be good at what he does (gymnastics). Millman has a hard time believing this because he's practically perfect in his own eyes, but Socrates is allusive enough to attract Millman further and cause him to attempt Socrates' seemingly bizarre advice. One of the reasons is that Socrates is continually doing very bizarre metaphysical/spiritual tricks to Millman that are really physically impossible. It got me wondering just which of these scenes were "based on true events."

What follows Millman's decision to take Socrates' advice, and makes up the majority of the movie, is the evolving relationship between a doubting disciple, Millman, who encounters life's struggles and setbacks (including a serious injury), and a spiritual master of every aspect of life, Socrates. That in itself doesn't sound bad... after all, the central story of the Gospels is much the same. However, this spiritual master might've been saying something new to his self-absorbed disciple, Millman, but he certainly wasn't saying anything new to his theater-going audience.

If you've at all followed the trend of inspirational thinking that's arisen everywhere in America from prime-time TV to business offices in the last couple of decades, then you've probably already heard about 75% or more of Socrates' lines. If you've tried to avoid it, you've still probably heard at least 50% of it. I'm not exaggerating here at all. All of Socrates lines could've been made half by googling "inspirational quotes" and finding someone's homepage that's full of them and half by saving fortune cookies every time the producers went out for Chinese. It's basically a rapid succession of one-liners you've heard before... sometimes appropriately placed, sometimes not. The funniest one to me was when Socrates explains the three principles of life to Millman. That would seem to fit very well in this movie, but none of those three principles ever surface anywhere before or after in the movie and that one moment becomes the laughable embodiment of the character of the entire movie. The one line, "there are no ordinary moments," that apparently merited a second citation definitely stood out to me, because it was the only one-liner that was said twice.

Like all inspirational movies, the main character achieves his goal in the end, and since this one was "based on true events," they summarized the subsequent events in the main character's life. It is here where we learn that Millman went on to become an inspirational author and speaker. Then, things started coming together for me. I realized most of those one-liners probably came from some of his books, the way all inspirational speakers share roughly the same material. Events in the movie also alluded to the idea that Socrates was only the embodiment of Millman's conscience, so I guess if he was saying all the things that Millman was thinking (or "discovering") as well as performing physically impossible feats, it wouldn't be a strict violation of "based on true events." Then I remembered, "there are no ordinary moments," and the fact that it was repeated twice. I figured it must be his favorite catch phrase or book title. I looked it up when I got home and sure enough, Dan Millman published a book titled, "No Ordinary Moments" in 1992. That got me thinking again about what movie company in the world would populate their opening weekend audience with freeloaders by giving out tickets across the country. Then it struck me: this is a marketing push for Dan Millman. His inspirational books and speaking engagements are a success, but the real publicity is in movies. So, he decided, "everyone should hear my story," and what better way to get himself booked for more speaking engagements then making sure his movie's a success? I believe, though this is purely assumption, that he paid for my tickets, as well as about $15 million worth of other people's tickets himself. It might have been the only way to even half-fill the theater I was sitting in.

In short, it seems like another product in a long-line of inspirational merchandise. If you need a quick pick-me-up, then pop your head in at any time during the movie, wait a few minutes, and you're sure to get the inspirational fix you need. If you love gymnastics and think there haven't been enough movies showcasing a gymnast's struggle, then you'll get some of that here. But don't expect an action-driven sports drama. This is almost pure inspirational fluff.