One out of
Five stars
Running time:
109 mins
Slow-moving, badly acted and painfully pretentious drama that fails to engage on any level.
What's it all about?
Written and directed by Paul Schrader, The Walker stars Woody Harrelson as Carter Page III, a wealthy homosexual whose family fortune enables him to spend his days as a society walker, squiring the wives of the rich and powerful around Washington. His three closest confidantes are Lynn (Kristin Scott Thomas), Natalie (Lauren Bacall) and Abigail (Lily Tomlin) and the four of them get together for canasta and political gossip once a week.
When Lynn discovers that her lover has been murdered, Carter agrees to say that he found the body, to save her and her senator husband (Willem Dafoe) from any political embarrassment. However, an ambitious District Attorney (William Hope) attempts to implicate both Carter and Lynn in the murder, forcing Carter to try and solve the murder himself.
The Bad
You might think that no movie with a murder in it could be all bad, but The Walker disproves that notion and laughs in your face whilst doing so. It is, perhaps, the most boring murder mystery ever committed to celluloid.
It doesn't help that Woody Harrelson does a terrible accent and speaks with such a meticulously slow delivery that it's hard to stay awake till the end of his sentences. In addition, the film wastes Tomlin, Bacall and Dafoe by giving them almost nothing to do.
The Worst
The Walker is the sort of film that places great symbolic significance in Carter's carefully-concealed hairpiece, whilst seemingly unaware that a scene of Carter removing his hairpiece and placing it on a sort of pedestal is only going to provoke sniggering. There is decent support from Moritz Bleibtreu as Carter's partner but his efforts are largely wasted.
Worth seeing?
It's hard to believe that The Walker and Taxi Driver were written by the same person. Do yourself a favour and walk the other way.