Some audience members will find the story's persistently vague tone annoying, but director Salva ( Powder, Jeepers Creepers) has something else in mind, though I never quite figured out what that something was. For instance, what are we to make of Nolte's nameless cipher? There are hints throughout the film that the character may be all in Dan's head, but if that's the case, it's never fully revealed why or how this helpful, Miyagi-esque bugaboo arrived, or, really, if Dan's gone round the proverbial bend, or much of anything. Peaceful Warrior is adapted from the semiautobiographical novel The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by the real-life Millman, and it's an odd, puzzling film.

That means cutting his hedonistic instincts to the quick and abandoning pleasures of the flesh altogether, a curtailment he does not take to as gracefully as he does the pommel horse. With his interest duly piqued, Dan, who's been suffering from performance anxiety and one of most disturbing nightmares yet put to film (as evidenced by the film's attention-grabbing opening sequence), allows himself to be tutored in the higher psychological arts, Г la The Karate Kid. What this arrogant prick needs is less post-practice bed-hopping and more inscrutable Zen koans from the likes of Nolte's mysterious midnight auto mechanic, whom Dan dubs Socrates after their first 3am exchange ends with the aging grease monkey leaping, to all appearances, a humanly impossible 12 vertical feet onto his service station's rooftop. His force is a tad too forceful, you see, his Han forever solo no matter how many times he gets, um, Leia'd.

Yoda, of course, said it best: 'Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things.' And yet they're the same psychological impediments that keep hotshot UC Berkeley gymnast and stridently cocksure Olympic hopeful Dan Millman (Mechlowicz) both relatively earthbound and emotionally constrained.

Peaceful warrior movie