Peaceful Warrior Reviews

I wasn't sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Nick Nolte, I thought I should check it out. First of all, I thought it was kind of hilarious that they started the whole thing with the typical tagline 'inspired by true events'. I mean, the main event channeling the whole story sees the main character waking up at the 3 o'clock at night, goes for a whole walk and in some random gas station, finds his great mentor. Do you seriously expect us to believe that it is really what happened?!? And I won't even tell you how this first encounter ended... Anyway, the rest of the movie is some kind of weak mix between 'The Karate Kid' and 'A Beautiful Mind'. 'The Karate Kid' part is the usual stuff you get from such features (meeting with the wise mentor, training, conflict with trainer, dramatic event, some more training and the final victory). It was rather generic and not really interesting. Then, indeed, it also reminded me of 'A Beautiful Mind' because those meetings with this stranger trainer were so surreal, until the end you were never completely sure if the guy really existed or not. I know, I make it sound as if it was a terrible movie but there was also some good stuff. Take the intro, I thought it was just mind-blowing. Indeed, you have this gymnast doing his routine and, at the end, he lands badly and you literally see his leg shattered into million pieces. It was visually really clever and made me wonder what would happen next. Furthermore, even though the pseudo-philosophy was sometimes some laughable garbage, there were also some valuable and rather thoughthfull bits. Finally, Nick Nolte was just really convincing and could sell any bullshit if he wanted to, all those words sounded like some pearls of wisdom coming from him. To conclude, even though it is really flawed, it remains an intriguing sport flick and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.