orange_bicycle There are certainly flaws in this film. It's a little frustrating because this could have been a great film, a true classic.That being said there were some great lines in this, really interesting performances and great production design. I love movies with themes like this. Stories that are unique and portray a world that is an allegory for so many things in our culture but says something different portraying the lives of people never represented in cinema before. I also love a smart movie where there are more great actresses than actors built in the narrative. I admire filmmakers who do it. It's a real treat, especially when it's not a romantic comedy or some 'female/family empowerment' drivel. There were three of the best in here (and Woody Harrelson really stretched his chops and I liked it).There's a few clunkers in the dialogue, especially in the beginning (it evens out later and gets good). And the characters sometimes are a little Sunday morning cartoonish for me (but it may just be style). The thriller component of this is a bit convoluted. It actually seems like the back seat passenger in this film and didn't get fleshed out correctly, which could have been their intention.If I were involved in this film I would be really proud of it. I think it's important to articulate new ground in American storytelling. While I can't say this was a home run, I'm open to the possibility that on a 2nd or 3rd viewing I may adjust this opinion. I believe it's worth watching if you like noir, thrillers, queer stuff and all these actors. And if you watch a lot of movies, but don't finish many of them, like me, because they are all the same Hollywood crap.

Roland E. Zwick Carter Page III – or Car to his friends - is a gay man who works as a paid escort for some of the most well-connected wives in Washington D.C, accompanying them to functions that their husbands have neither the time nor the interest in attending. A Southern gentleman by both breeding and birth, Car - thanks to his role as sympathetic ear to these gabby dowagers - seems to be privy to more of the inner workings of the snooty Beltway crowd than almost anyone else in town. But Car learns that such knowledge often comes with a steep price, when he agrees to help cover up for one of his clients, the wife of the Minority Leader of the Senate (Kristen Scott Thomas), after the lobbyist she's been having a secret affair with turns up stabbed to death in his own home. Before he knows it, Car has become a prime suspect in the case, and when the woman he's trying to protect leaves him to twist in the wind for something she herself may have done, Car discovers just what a superficial, tenuous and unreliable a thing friendship can be.Written and directed by Paul Schrader, "The Walker" is a subtle and quietly powerful tale of a man who has spent his whole life trying to please the people around him – principally his father - but who learns that in order to survive in this world, he must ultimately put his own concerns ahead of those of others. He also has to weigh which of the three is of greatest value: loyalty to a friend, adherence to the law or the code of self-preservation. For if he makes the wrong choice, Car might well find himself being set up as a sacrificial offering to the almighty Status Quo – an entity that is grotesquely magnified in the shallow, corrupt and cutthroat world of D.C. culture.Combining a genteel Southern drawl and natty appearance with slightly aloof, effeminate and haughty mannerisms, Woody Harrelson fully inhabits the role of Car, making him supremely confident and strangely vulnerable at one and the same time. A seasoned cast made up of Lily Tomlin, Lauren Bacall, Ned Beatty and Willem Dafoe gives the film an air of importance and prestige it might not otherwise have had. There's also excellent work by Moritz Bleibtreu as Car's on again/off again lover who may be in over his head with some pretty shady characters who don't like the fact that he's investigating the lobbyist's death alongside Car.

phd_travel There is an interesting premise and a good cast. Why is this movie so terribly boring? The story is predictable. Walker helps female friend but ends up taking heat until he is exonerated. High society doesn't prove to helpful.They needed a Dominic Dunne to write the story better.The pace is just way too slow. They could have cut half and hour at least. What a dismal job of directing. Woody Harrelson's slow drawl isn't Southern it's just moronic sounding. Lauren Bacall looks a bit too ancient here. Kristin Scott Thomas looks the part but sounds British.Don't bother with this dud. It's just a waste of a good cast.

CitizenCaine With The Walker, director Paul Schrader continues the the isolated man theme he's explored several times in the past with Taxi Driver, Hardcore, Raging Bull, American Gigolo, Light Sleeper, and even Affliction to some degree. Woody Harrelson is Carter Page, a walker for society women who must make public appearances without their spouses or with someone if they have no spouse. Harrelson has a stable of women he works with including the legendary Lauren Bacall, who is amusing indeed in a limited role, Lily Tomlin, and Kristen Scott-Thomas. Scott-Thomas is Harrelson's focal woman in the group and of Schrader's plot. She pays a visit to her lover with Harrelson in tow only to discover the lover murdered. Harrelson, of course, becomes the prime suspect. As Carter Page, he undergoes somewhat of a personality change as he is forced to shed the superficial airs he puts on for his society friends in favor of taking a more active role in the investigation that follows in order to simultaneously save his own skin and maintain his integrity with his society friends.Schrader has always had an ear for dialog and has drawn excellent characterizations, and the characters in The Walker are no exception. Woody Harrelson is quite different as Carter Page than most audience members are used to seeing him. The cinematography by Chris Seager is rich with detail and serves as a counterpart to the artificiality of Washington politics surrounding the goings-on in the film. In tact is Schrader's isolated man against himself, others, and society as in all of the previously aforementioned films. The film tends to drag just a tad but accelerates nicely after the murder. It's not one of Schrader's best, but average Schrader is still above average when compared to other filmmakers. Ned Beatty has a key small role as a politician, and Willem Dafoe, a Schrader favorite, also has a small role. *** of 4 stars.