Hear a title like “Peaceful Warrior” and, usually, a whiff of new-agey bullshit isn’t far behind. Sit through an hour and a half of this recently released film and you’d expect the bromidic perfumes to overwhelm. Strangely, they don’t.
Wax On, Wax Off: Scott Mechlowicz plays an injured gymnast who is nursed back to spiritual and physical health by a sage (Nick Nolte), who shows him the ways of the “Peaceful Warrior.”
Yes, there was a wise old sage named Socrates with supernatural powers who spoke in proverbs. And yes, the story is about a miraculous physical recovery through a triumph of mental and spiritual strength — a college gymnast’s shattered ankle rebuilds and is ready again for competition in just a few months’ time. And yes, the author of the book on which the film is based does have a sort of informal cult following.
But the sage, played by Nick Nolte (“Hotel Rwanda,” “Affliction”), isn’t too outrageously Zen — he pumps gas for a living, for example, and his proverbial syntax is standard enough; he’s more of a Mr. Miyagi than a Yoda or a Splinter. He also enjoys a shot of whiskey once in a while — a personal touch from Nolte? And the plot, however fantastical it may seem, is based on true events.
Though the novelist who inspired the film, Dan Millman, is not completely there in my book, he does have a message that moves people. The original title of the book, “Way of the Peaceful Warrior,” has even acquired the tag-on, “A Book That Changes Lives” in response to the thousands of letters Millman has received since its first publication in 1980.
“You have to handle it carefully because it’s such a precious story to so many people,” said actor Scott Mechlowicz (“Mean Street,” “Eurotrip”) who plays Socrates’ student in the film. “A woman last night [at the screening] was saying how she hurt her leg as a dancer, and went to a really dark place. Then, as she was at her darkest, someone gave her Dan’s book and it completely changed her life around.”
What message could have such a personal impact? It’s “about keeping clarity of the mind — like they say in the film, just ‘taking out the trash,’ you know, everything you’re constantly thinking about during the day that’s keeping you from thinking about the moment that you’re in,” said Mechlowicz, echoing the film’s catch phrase, “There are no ordinary moments. You’re constantly thinking about what you have to do tomorrow or the day after, what just happened in the grocery store right before you got there, but you’re not thinking about this moment — all that there is — the happiness that you should have underneath everything because you are where you are,” he said.
With a title like “Peaceful Warrior,” everyone involved in this production took a risk in making it. Now I take a risk in return, and say it’s not as bad as it sounds — it definitely exceeds expectations at the least.