Independent filmmakers are eternal optimists. They start with an idea, develop a plot, create a script, beg, borrow or bury themselves in debt to translate words into images, sweat through casting, assembling a crew, shooting schedules and editing the raw material into a finished product.
Once their personal vision is completed, the independent filmmakers beg some more, knock on doors and try to find a distributor that shares their dream or at least, is willing to gamble on the financial success of their creation.
In the end, reality slaps the filmmaker in the chin. Most independent projects are hampered by amateur script writers, mediocre acting, inexperienced directing and poor camera work. Great visions become predictable mediocrities.
Yet, every so often, the charcoal does become the diamond, glittering, beautiful, the images on screen telling a worthwhile story that makes the viewer think that this particular filmmaker has managed to bare his soul and reach his audience.
Spiritual Warriors is such a film, a low budget diamond with a high carat profile. The plot tells the story of Finn, a street wise, unknown actor who makes a living delivering cocaine for a drug dealer until he bumps into a strange, mystical character —Roger- who has the appearance of a refugee from the original Woodstock, a Santa Claus type beachcomber who seems to be functioning at a metaphysical level in a realm between quaint charm and perplexing intrusion as he chats away in a variety of accents that includes British, Pakistani and regular English with John Wayne imitations.
So begins a journey that takes mentor and student from every day reality to faraway lands of pyramids and special effect visions that range from freemason symbolism to past lives of ancient reincarnations. There is a dose of Atlantis thrown in and an epic final struggle between the shallow actor transformed into a hero and an evil entity representing the dark forces that dwell around us and within us.
Spiritual Warriors is not moronic, spoon fed entertainment, but a film that makes the viewer think. As Finn talks to a psychiatrist, one wonders if the actor is living a real epic quest or whether the demons, reincarnations and events are a figment of delusional schizophrenia enhanced by too many powdered toots from the bags he has delivered for the tough looking mobster.
Yet, it matters not what the reality of Finn’s real world is, for this is a movie about awareness of self, about grasping one’s inner identity, identifying the core of the individual soul that makes each of us unique. It is not precisely a religious movie, for it dwells into several levels of religious consciousness, from the Hindu reincarnation to Christian symbolisms, perhaps seeking to identify the concept of God as a totality of the whole, rather than labeling it into a single definition.
The movie —still seeking one of those elusive bean counters known as distributors- works because it is the end product of seasoned professionals who have years of experience in the film industry.
Jsu Garcia who plays Finn with likeable panache is also the co-author of the script and co-producer of the film. Garcia is a veteran actor with over fifty film credits. He was Captain Nadal in the Mel Gibson film “We Were Soldiers,” Roman in “Collateral Damage,” Pablo Obregon in “Traffic,” Javier in “Along Came Polly” and gained praised for his portrayal of guerrilla leader Che Guevara in Andy Garcia’s “Lost City.” He has honed his craft working with some of the top directors in the trade, including Francis Ford Coppola.
Garcia is the production and co-scriptwriting partner of John-Roger, an author, philosopher and founder of the Movement of Spiritual Awareness, an organization created in 1968, in which the actor has been involved for over two decades. Spiritual Warriors is their first feature film collaboration.
The part of Roger -Finn’s mentor- is portrayed by Roger Easton, one of the top voice coaches in the movie industry, a solid performer with over one hundred film credits in his resume in a career stretching six decades. His spiritual guru is a likeable, fascinating character.
The film, loaded with very good special effects in spite of its modest —less than a million dollar- budget was shot in high definition by Evan Nesbitt, a craftsman, with impressive location scenes shot in Jordan, Syria and Egypt.
If the movie has a minor flaw —as all films do- is the occasional, unnecessary use of a narrator to read a thought flashed on screen as well as one or two scenes that could be edited shorter, although the editing is first rate and the transition between scenes is very well executed.
Other members of the cast include veteran actors Christopher Atkins, Leigh Taylor-Young, Shyla Cruize and acting coach Howard Fine playing himself.
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Enrique Encinosa, an on air personality for Univision Radio in Miami, is the author of six books and four documentary scripts.
