THE
WALKER
By LESLIE FELPERIN
Variety, 2/13/07
 Paul
Schrader's "The Walker" reworks one of his favorite plot
tropes: the ne'er-do-well whose soul is purified in the heat of
a murder investigation. Harrowed hero here is a gay Washington,
D.C.-based gadabout (Woody Harrelson) who struggles to shield a
friend from scandal. Although script sparkles with twinkly bon mots
and cynical quips, pic's midsection feels a little flabby, as if
the writer-helmer were just going through the motions. Still, even
if this isn't Schrader's best, it's hardly his worst, and modestly
budgeted pic should break even with limited release in urban burgs,
performing marginally better abroad.
A scion of the Virginia gentry and the son of a late, highly respected
liberal senator who took part in the Watergate hearings (as everyone
keeps reminding him), Carter Page III (Harrelson) apparently lives
off some kind of inheritance and dabbles in real estate. His real
vocation is as a walker, a sort of unpaid escort (most definitely
not the sexual kind) for the wives of rich and powerful men, squiring
ladies to public events when their husbands aren't free or inclined
to come.
Per press notes, term was originally coined to describe Jerry Zipkin,
who "walked" Nancy Reagan and Betsy Bloomingdale among
others and, like Carter here, held weekly canasta games at the height
of his popularity where he and select femme friends would swap gossip.
Action opens at just such a canasta game in a private D.C. hotel
room where Carter entertains his inner circle: grande dame Natalie
Van Miter (Lauren Bacall, in great, queenly form), Abigail Delorean
(Lily Tomlin, solid as ever) and Lynn Lockner (Kristin Scott Thomas,
doing that brittle, haute-bourgeois siren schtick she does so well),
all of them wives of either politicians or eminent lobbyists.
As opening shot swirls around room's tasteful murals, the camera
not even showing any faces, dialogue suggests convincingly that
although these ladies may spend most of their time lunching, their
husbands didn't marry them for their looks alone. They're the politically
savvy handmaidens of the elite who help stage-manage their husbands'
careers, and Carter is their court jester.
He's closest to Lynn, whom he even once made a play for way back
before coming out of the closet. They're such old friends now that
he acts as lookout and alibi for her when she pays weekly visits
to her lover, lobbyist Robbie Kononsberg (Steven Hartley). But one
day, she comes back from Robbie's condo and tells Carter she found
her lover stabbed to death. In order to protect Lynn and her senator
husband Larry (Willem Dafoe) from impertinent questions, Carter
offers to report the crime himself to the police.
When the investigation starts, and ambitious district attorney Mungo
Tenant (William Hope) gets involved, Carter is hauled in for grilling.
It seems someone has tipped them off already about Lynn's affair
with Robbie, but Carter refuses to waver from his story that he
found the body first, even if it makes him a suspect.
It emerges, via gossip at the canasta game, that Robbie was involved
with an investment company that is about to be investigated for
malfeasance (never quite explained), which would uncover all kinds
of dirt about people in Carter's circle. The only way for Carter
to protect Lynn and keep himself out of jail is to turn amateur
investigator himself, helped by his loyal German-Turkish lover Emek
(Moritz Bleibtreu), a tabloid paparazzo who wants to transition
into gallery-based art photography and get Carter to settle down
with him.
Plot parallels with Schrader's "American Gigolo" and "Light
Sleeper" are obvious, but helmer also more subtly references
his back catalog through James Merifield's production design, which
makes ample use of Venetian blinds (a key noir-homage motif in "Gigolo").
A very "Gigolo"-esque montage lingers fetishistically
over the hero's coiled ties and glinting cufflink collection as
he undresses, climaxing with the removal of his wig revealing his
bald pate, a brave moment for follicle-challenged star Harrelson
that tenderly exposes the character's hidden, vulnerable self. Elsewhere,
cantered camera angles invoke the woozy feel of camerawork in "Cat
People" and some of the helmer's other pics.
Such self-homage is fun for Schrader fans, but what's missing here
is the ambitious innovation, emotional ferocity and spiritual topnotes
of the director at his best, on view in "Mishima: A Life in
Four Chapters" and more recently in his underrated minor masterpiece
"Auto Focus," to say nothing of his scripts for Martin
Scorsese. Plot's mystery MacGuffin hinders rather than enhances
second act, right when Carter's world starts to frazzle and his
relationship with Emek needs to be more fleshed out (perhaps literally
-- character' passion for one another is incarnated in just one
long but chaste-looking kiss through a wire fence).
Fortunately, strong ensemble compensates for film's minor shortcomings.
Harrelson finds new ways of making smarm charm, his gestures and
gait convincingly suggesting affected camp without slipping into
caricature. His signature line, "I'm not naive, I'm superficial,"
nails the character beautifully.
Costume designer Nic Ede gets across Carter's slightly misjudged,
Southern-style foppishness through the design of his oddly cut,
shade-too-tight double-breasted suits, suggestive of hand-me-downs
from Carter Page Sr. that don't quite fit.
Apart from location work in Washington, D.C., pic was largely shot
in Blighty and on the Isle of Man, presumably for budgetary reasons,
and it shows in the anonymous interiors that never look quite right
as the playgrounds of America's super-elite. Otherwise, craft contributions
are pro without being outstanding.(U.S.-U.K.)
A Kintop Pictures, Ingenious Film Partners,
Asia Pacific Films, Isle of Man Film presentation. (International
sales: Pathe, London.) Produced by Deepak Nayer. Executive producers,
Willi Baer, Steve Christian, James Clayton, Parseghian Planco, Duncan
Reid. Directed, written by Paul Schrader.
Carter Page III - Woody Harrelson
Lynn Lockner - Kristin Scott Thomas
Natalie Van Miter - Lauren Bacall
Abigail Delorean - Lily Tomlin
Jack Delorean - Ned Beatty
Emek Yoglu - Moritz Bleibtreu
Larry Lockner - Willem Dafoe
Mungo Tenant - William Hope
Detective Dixon - Geff Francis
Robbie Kononsberg - Steven Hartley
Chrissie Morgan - Mary Beth Hurt
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