The Walker film review
According to the Daily Mail, it sent many reviewers to sleep. Whilst I concede that someone writing for a paper of such quality as the daily bigot would not have the mental capacity to appreciate a quality film, I am surprised that other people who watch films for a living didn’t enjoy this. For once, here is a Hollywood film that is intelligent, well performed and engrossing.
The Walker is fundamentally about the choice between doing what is honest, and doing what will keep you of trouble, and unfortunately, dealing with the US government the two are mutually exclusive. Woody Harrelson plays the walker in question, a man who walks rich women from place to place when their husbands are too busy being senators and the like to spend time with them. He is gay, and has a hectic private life also. He then gets mixed up in a murder case and finds himself implicated. From here on the film adopts a thriller mode which is much more fast paced than you would expect from the films opening scenes. The acting is excellent, Woody Harrelson is outstanding and has a most unusual and affecting Southern drawl which is probably the highlight of the entire film. Hard to listen to at first but by the films close my internal voice had adopted the same accent. The film looks great too, especially in a digital cinema, with rich colours and Washington cityscapes.
One thing on my mind after the film, I was expecting something very dry and potentially dull, so my low expectations may have aided my appreciation of the film. It is a common issue with reading reviews or building preconceptions before watching a film that the person looking forward to the film most finds it less enjoyable than the one who didn’t really want to see it. Every now and then however I’m watching a film and am totally engrossed and have forgotten whether I expected to like a film or not, it is as if I am inside the film, suddenly I snap out of this momentarily and at that moment realise how great the film is. The Walker is such a film.
This film has much to commend it, but don’t take my word for it, watch the trailer and clips below.
Trailer
Opening scene
Mark Kermode interviews Paul Schrader