Oddly enough, it's not the plausible stuff like the gymnastics that fascinates me in the story, but the mystery of Socrates. To quote myself (this situation has come up before): I can't give away the ending, because it gives itself away. The story arc of "Peaceful Warrior" is so familiar that in addition to being inspired by fact, it is inspired by at least two-thirds of all the sports movies ever made. Told he will never compete in gymnastics again, he contemplates suicide, but eventually finds himself back at the service station, where Socrates shares such wisdom as, "The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination." I was happy to hear this, because it explains what Godard meant when he said, "The cinema is not the station, the cinema is the train." This is inspired by the real Dan's accident in which he broke his leg in 21 places. Quizzed on such puzzles, Socrates has helpful answers such as pointing to his forehead while saying, "Take out the trash, Dan."ĭan's motorcycle hits a car and he breaks his femur in 17 places. How did he do that? Later, Dan also wants to know how Socrates appears in his bedroom during sex, and on top of a beam in the gymnasium. As he's leaving, he turns back and finds that Socrates is now standing on the roof of the station, 15 feet or more above the ground. Once, after a nasty fall, his coach tells him: "Nobody on this planet can do what you're trying to do."ĭan is out jogging the first night he meets the Nolte character, who he eventually thinks of as Socrates.
Dan is a gymnast on the Berkeley team, a hot-shot who's always trying out risky stuff in the gym.
He has such conversations with Dan Millman ( Scott Mechlowicz), a character based on the author of the 1980 self-help best-seller that has inspired the movie. "This is a service station," he says at one point. This station, however, seems well-lighted and orderly, and Nolte's character is always busy under the hood of a car. Nolte plays the only attendant at an all-night Texaco station that looks so old-fashioned, it could be the Fatal Gas Station in a horror movie: You know, where the sinister old scarecrow in overalls tells the kids to turn left and go down the old dirt road into the swamp.
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