honorable intentions, not polished results

Rating: 7/10 (3 June 2012)

While all movies—even documentaries—require some deferral of disbelief to succeed, this one stretches us even further to demand a hiatus from our sophistication about New Age (or "Alternative," or God help us, "Spiritual," or whatever they used to call it back in the last millennium) platitudes that now ring all too hollow and tiresome in the contemporary ear.
Beginning in 1991, author Dan Millman turned his Peaceful Warrior series of inspirational self-help books into quite the lucrative franchise of a dozen or more titles (Hmm. Maybe the guy really is on to something.), but this movie didn't come out until 2006, by which time it was pushing a little too hard on its sell-by date.
Nonetheless, Nick Nolte does a remarkable job at keeping a straight face while delivering lines the likes of "This moment is the only thing that matters." Yeah, right. Been there, done that, and long since sent the t-shirt to the Goodwill.
IF, huge IF, one can put aside one's critical knowingness and allow that all the crypto-shamanistic psycho-babble might still be fresh, potent stuff worthy of mindful consideration, then a remarkable thing happens: Peaceful Warrior becomes a beacon of hope and motivation, an entirely positive reinforcement of the notion that it is indeed possible to pass through life's slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and emerge a fuller, stronger person. It might help if one happens to be experiencing one of those pesky setbacks at the moment, and consequently feeling more susceptible to the hokey, but nonetheless entirely valid message.
(Full disclosure: it's not a very well made movie, and to judge from Nolte's apparent age, this flick languished on the shelf for some while before finding distribution. It's not hard to understand why. True, there is a lot to forgive here, but it's worth the mental exercise to give it a try. The stars are more for honorable intentions, than a polished product.)