Peaceful Warrior

In his insufferably awe-inspired adaptation of Dan Millman's best selling self-help book Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Victor Salva ditches the blood and gore of the Jeeper's Creepers films for the more familiar sentiments that populated 1995's supernatural feel-good film Powder, yet still manages to convey an equally creepy overtone of another kind. Given his admitted fondness for male youth (he served 12 months for molesting the 12-year-old star of his low-budget feature debut Clownhouse), Salva seems an odd choice to helm the story of a college student (Mean Creek's Scott Mechlowicz as Millman) who is tutored on the merits of inner strength by an older man (an appropriately grizzled and gravel-voiced Nick Nolte as mysterious and curmudgeonly gas station attendant Socrates). Indeed, the director wastes no time in fawning over his young male lead and the equally strapping actors who portray members and competitors of his gymnastics team, often showing them shirtless and sweaty in all their athletic glory—as if they had walked right out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. The effect is only a bit disquieting, however, as the movie is guilty of far worse faults than youthful homoeroticism. From the first encounter that Dan has with Socrates—when the older man mysteriously vanishes from the ground only to reappear on top of his gas station's roof in a matter of seconds—the film falls prey to a dewy-eyed mysticism that weighs it down every time it begins to take flight. Socrates coaches Millman through a series of laborious tasks, spouting off bumper-sticker rhetoric such as “The warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it's about love.” Millman, in turn, gets all Ralph Macchio on Socrates, defying his mentor's teachings and giving in to his own impatience until tragedy strikes and his career is derailed by his own childish impulsiveness and ego. That's when the real test of his character begins—and the movie really falls victim to its own sense of righteousness. Mechlowicz is a dynamic young actor, but here he overacts through much of the film, while Nolte merely phones it in, but both of these talented men are just victims of Salva's penchant for overwrought emotion and heavy-handed melodrama. The shots of the half-naked jocks in the locker room, on the other hand, are the few moments where the movie actually feels genuinely inspired. —Ken Knox

A Prairie Home Companion

Crusty is how I like my bread, not my films. Alas, director Robert Altman—albeit a legend with a roster of classics behind him—has finally become crustier than any rustic loaf baked in all of Europe's bakeries. So have his films. A Prairie Home Companion mines some pretty crusty material to boot.

Written by Garrison Keillor, the screenplay imagines the final broadcast of his real-life, quintessentially Midwestern, three-decade old radio program. Keillor, playing himself, seems nonplussed by the fact his show is being shut down (the theater it's set in has been bought and designated for demolishing). The evening's performers, including musical acts Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin) and Dusty and Lefty (John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson), make the best of things. But private gumshoe Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) notices a mysterious woman skulking about the theater (Virginia Madsen) and becomes obsessed with discovering her identity… and why she's there.

If you're a longtime fan of Keillor and his show, you're going to be a happy camper. There's plenty of his trademark anecdote sharing and many of the show's characters come to three-dimensional life (if tweaked a little). But the whole production reeked of Grandma's attic. An obviously calculated effort to draw a dash of the younger demographic entails Lindsay Lohan's presence. And I have to admit Maya Rudolph's (Chuck & Buck, SNL) appearance de-aged things up a tad, as well. But too little, way too little, to make A Prairie Home Companion relevant to most urbanites under 40 (I'm not an ageist, really!—at the press screening, all those clearly over 50 roared with laughter, while the handful of 20-to-30-somethings remained silent and, in several cases, walked out early).

Altman's drifting camera style fits the drifting nature of the material—the actors seem in full improv mode—but it's really grown tired, frankly, as have Kline's efforts to be funny. Perhaps Altman should fast consider a Prairie Home retirement before he makes another The Company. —Lawrence Ferber

Shadowboxer

Poor Cuba Gooding Jr. Though it's been 10 years since he won the Academy Award for his performance in Jerry Maguire, the admittedly talented actor still seems to be having a hard time adjusting to life post-Oscar. Having made some pretty bad choices (the short list includes suck stinkers as What Dreams May Come, Rat Race, Pearl Harbor, and, er, Snow Dogs), Gooding seems to be focusing on gritty action thrillers and character dramas like the recently released Dirty and this peculiar little indie pic about assassins and redemption. Cast as Mikey, a hired killer of little words reared and, ahem, seduced by the female assassin who shot his father, Gooding gamely smokes and smolders his way through the film, in which Mikey and terminally ill mentor/lover Rose (Helen Mirren, effectively shaking off Hollywood ageism) become saddled by Vickie (Angelina Jolie look-alike Vanessa Ferlito)—the pregnant woman they were hired to kill—when Rose has a last-minute change of heart and decides to start an anti-nuclear family. What sets director Lee Daniels' provocative suspense yarn apart from others of its kind is not only its relatively simple narrative and some of its artier leanings (cinematographer M. David Mullen shadows much of the action in vibrantly colorful hues and occasionally surreal effects), but the film's unorthodox (yet refreshingly accurate) presentation of human sexuality. Whether it be in the surprisingly sensuous couplings between Gooding and Mirren or the graphically depicted intercourse of those who use sex as a form of control (watch out for that full-frontal shot of a rather well-endowed Stephen Dorff), Shadowboxer reveals a world where black and white, old and young, and thin and fat naturally co-exist sexually. If the story (against his better judgment, Mikey makes a promise to the dying Rose that he will look after Vickie—even if it means his own death) were only so boldly original and not stunted by Daniels' unfortunate penchant for heavy-handed moodiness, Shadowboxer might have been a major knockout of a film. As it is, it will have to settle for being a movie that coulda been a contender. —Ken Knox

The Whore’s Son

With a title like The Whore's Son, one might expect a slightly sexier tale than what is presented on screen here. Alas, director (and co-writer) Michael Sturminger is more inclined to show the love/hate mother-son dynamic than any real frisky business. (And the film deliberately eschews any incest angle. More's the pity).

But this does not mean The Whore's Son is without merit. For viewers who can appreciate this story of a Yugoslavian prostitute keeping her profession a secret from her child, this is an oddly compelling melodrama.

Opening with the confession that Ozren (Stanislav Lisnic) killed his mother Silvija (Chulpan Khamatova), he admits, “I never could think like other people. I was always different.” Gay men might empathize with this sentiment, but Ozren is generally clueless when it comes to sex. He refuses to acknowledge that his mother is selling herself to the series of handsome suitors with whom she spends considerable time—even missing a school concert, much to Ozren's despair. Likewise, the teen's eventual—and abbreviated—seduction by one of his mother's co-workers, is unsatisfying as much as for Ozren's reaction to his first sexual encounter as it is for being so abruptly terminated. (Viewers hoping that the adorable Lisnic will get out of his clothes will be disappointed).

Yet when The Whore's Son focuses away from sex, it is actually most engaging. The relationship between Ozren and his mother is fraught with palpable tension, even if her actions do not always make sense. When Silvija leaves her child on his own (so she can ply her trade in another part of town), it may be her worst moment as a mother, but of course, it forces Ozren to confront her in one of the film's best sequences.

Sturminger could have played out the mama-drama more—as when Silvija confronts her son's seducer in the brothel—but instead he emphasizes the life lessons Ozren gets from his aunt (Ina Gogálová) and uncle (Miki Manojlovic). As a result, The Whore's Son is more about Ozren's maturation than his matricide, but at least it features a suitably operatic ending. —Gary M. Kramer