 List Price: $27.98
Lowest Price: $9.26 
Product Description: Set in Washington D.C., The Walker follows Carter Page (Harrelson), a popular socialite who serves as confidant, companion and card partner to the wives of the most powerful men in America. When Carter's dearest friend (Scott Thomas) finds herself on the brink of a scandal, he covers for her. Suddenly he finds himself the chief suspect in a criminal investigation and this well-connected man-about-town becomes an outcast, hounded by the police and forced to hunt down the true culprit in order to clear his name. Amazon.com: With The Walker, Paul Schrader completes the "lonely man" trilogy he began with American Gigolo (1980) and Light Sleeper (1992). If his third entry lacks the cheap thrills of its predecessors--the airbrushed glamour of the former and noir atmospherics of the latter--it's still a compelling character study. Cast against type, but rising above it, Woody Harrelson plays openly gay Carter Page III. Like Richard Gere's Armani-clad escort, Carter is always dressed to the nines--and ready with a cutting quip. Instead of servicing female clients, the Southern senator’s son serves as a "walker," a chaperone for Washington DC's political wives (Schrader was inspired by Nancy Reagan associate Jerry Zipkin). Carter’s coterie includes Lynn (Kristin Scott Thomas), Natalie (Lauren Bacall), and Abigail (Lily Tomlin). When Lynn's lobbyist lover turns up dead, Carter's carefully constructed world comes crashing down. Out of loyalty, he reports the murder (though Lynn found the body), but because Carter also has ties to the victim, the authorities make him their prime suspect. With the help of sometime lover Emek (Run Lola Run's Moritz Bleibtreu), he sets out to restore his reputation. Though the literate dialogue is up to Schrader's high standards, the director slackens the pace just when he should be ratcheting up the tension. Still, few filmmakers know how to make the truism "To thine own self be true" seem less trite. Unfortunately for Carter, he has to learn that lesson the hard way. --Kathleen C. Fennessy Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-28
Note to filmmakers: Wait for the right guy
When you have a role that is perfect for Philip Seymour Hoffman, do not go forward with your project until he is available. This film is tragically compromised by a mistake in casting. Woody Harrelson is not only miscast, he is hopelessly outclassed by the women surrounding him. Mr. Harrelson goes though his role as if he is afraid his makeup will crack -- his face is expressionless from first frame to last. Or perhaps his wig is too tight. As for script and direction -- dull, duller, dullest. At no point did I feel drawn in to the story. Avoid this huge disappointment of a film. Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-14
"I Do Need A Dirt Fix"
Written and directed by Paul Schrader ("The Comfort of Strangers," "American Gigolo") "The Walker" stars Woody Harrelson as an openly gay man Carter Page III, the son of a Virginia senator, in contemporary Washington, D. C. who escorts rich, idle women-- Lily Tomlin as Abigail, Kristin Scott Thomas as Lynn and Lauren Bacall as Nathalie-- around the city and plays canasta with them every Wednesday. Mary Beth Hurt, Ned Beatty and Willem Defoe are cast as well.
As we would expect from Mr. Schrader, "The Walker" is a dark film about power and political corruption in the highest levels of government. Reminiscent of Truman Capote, Page, dressed in high fashion double-breasted suits and a toupee, keeps the women laughing with his gossip and campy one-liners ("I need a dirt fix") until a lobbyist is murdered and he suddenly finds himself the chief suspect. His brittle women friends are suddenly not available and he is left with his cat Lancelot, that he confiscated from the dead man,and his boyfriend.
Kristin Scott Thomas gives a fine performance as a senator's wife. Lauren Bacall plays Lauren Bacall, but, hey, she looks great for whatever her age is. Lily Tomlin, although she has a small role, is good as always. Woody Harrelson may have been wonderful on "Cheers" but he is miscast here. For starters, he has a strange Southern accent that at times sounds like he is Marlon Brando in "The Godfather" and at other times like the gay soldier Brando plays in "Reflections in a Golden Eye."
Mr. Schrader has certainly made better movies; but if you are one of his fans, you should see this one too. I'd give it a very low B. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-11
"Let me give you a piece of Washington wisdom," Natalie Van Miter says. "Never stand between a friend and a firing squad."
"In the end, all you have is your breeding. It's all that separates `them' from `us,'" says Natalie Van Miter, rich, aging doyen of Washington high society.
"My great-grandfather got rich off slavery," says languid, gay, agreeable Carter Page III, escort for powerful women in the nation's capital, who is beginning to have second thoughts, thanks to a murder, about his life. "When the Yankees took that away, my grandfather made his money raisin' tobacco. I don't have any breeding."
"If your great-grandfather were alive today, he'd fit right in," says Natalie, with an affectionate squeeze to Carter's arm.
Car (Woody Harrelson), as his lady friends call him, always meets them for weekly Canasta games at an exclusive Washington club. They dish the gossip about everything and everyone, except about themselves. There's Natalie (Lauren Bacall), acerbic with a smile; Abigail Delorean (Lily Tomlin) the vice president's wife and no fool; and Lynn Lockner (Kristin Scott Thomas), unhappy wife of Senator Larry Lockner, the Senate's minority leader. They all adore Car, who dishes with the best of them. And Car adores them. He's a "walker," an unthreatening, well-bred man who takes wealthy women from place to place when their powerful husbands don't want to go.
Car even escorts Lynn Lockner to her secret weekly assignations with a lover, waiting in the car for her to return an hour or so later. This time, however, Lynn returns in minutes. She found her lover, a financial wheeler-dealer who had been scheduled to testify before a Senate committee, sprawled dead in the man's living room, stab wounds in his chest and, well, lower down. Car decides to protect Lynn, one of his favorite ladies, so he drives her home, returns and then calls the police and says he just found the body.
Carter Page is a man who has lived his life carefully. "I'm not naïve," he says at one point, "I'm superficial." He's never been willing to fully commit to his boyfriend. He uses soft-spoken wit to deflect anything too serious. "How come you're always so polite?" asks Lynn at one point. "It was my mother's answer to chaos and now it's mine," he tells her. He loves being a friend to his powerful, witty, sharply amusing ladies. Before long he's going to find himself the chief suspect in the murder, a target of an obnoxious prosecutor who is delighted to nail Carter with the crime. His boyfriend gets beaten up. Ruthless, political maneuvering in high places leaves him exposed to the elements. In some ways most hurtful, he realizes that his ladies, while still gracious, aren't inclined to play Canasta anymore with him. Even Lynn now is nowhere to be found. "Let me give you a piece of Washington wisdom," Natalie Van Miter tells him. "Never stand between a friend and a firing squad."
The Walker, for the first two-thirds, is a brittle, amusing satire of Washington society and the self-interest that makes it work. The last third, for me, slows down a bit because Paul Schrader, the director, begins to take his view of Washington politics too seriously. There are cracks about the current administration that are a bit old hat. The murderous intent to win at the political game turns from wit to something a little like melodrama. Still, The Walker for the most part is clever, with an unexpected performance by Woody Harrelson as the languid, gay Carter Page III, with a soft Southern accent and a wonderful wig. A couple of critics have said Harrelson was miscast. I don't think so. It just takes a few minutes to accept Harrelson, usually cast as grinning psychos or mentally deficient cowboys, as a tall, good-looking Truman Capote. Carter Page and his predicament with his ladies brings back memories of Capote thinking he was best pals with New York high society queens Babe Paley and Slim Keith, only to be cut dead by them when he dared to print the real dish. Capote proved to be both naïve and superficial (except when it came to his writing). So does Carter Page III until he starts putting the pieces together.
Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin and Kristin Scott Thomas are marvelous as Carter's realistic, witty, self-involved friends. They know the real dish; so does Carter; and they delight in sharing with each other. In fact, the movie has a number of first-rate actors, including Willem Dafoe, underused but effective as Lynn Lockner's ambitious husband, Moritz Bleibtreu as Carter's boyfriend and, particularly, Ned Beatty as Vice President Jack Delorean, a smiling, aging politician who is fully prepared to do whatever it takes to gain the advantage over anyone he thinks isn't American enough.
The DVD transfer looks just fine. The only extra of significance is a standard "making of" featurette."
To see Kristen Scott Thomas at her coolest and most determined, watch that singular movie of entomology and incest, Angels & Insects. Lily Tomlin, in my view, is an extraordinary actor, able to combine tart, skeptical intelligence with unexpected warmth. Two of her earlier movies I like a lot are The Late Show and All of Me. Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-04
Murky Character Study Disguised as a Capital Beltway Conspiracy with a Miscast Harrelson
Even though he borrows liberally from his own American Gigolo, writer/director Paul Schrader (Auto Focus) tackles an intriguing premise in this character-driven 2007 murder mystery but just can't seem to deliver on it. The concept revolves around the movie's title, which refers to a man who escorts older women of a certain standing to gala events and social activities that hold absolutely no interest to their husbands. What makes this particularly interesting is the Washington, D.C. setting where the atmosphere is thick with powerful politicos whose unscrupulous dealings lead to unwanted consequences. At the center of the story is much sought-after walker Carter Page III, an effete social dandy who happens to be the son of a former governor of Virginia. Carter is gay but seems to be out only to his canasta circle, as he holds down a one-day-a-week job as a real estate broker.
The prominent society women who enjoy his company are aging doyenne Natalie Van Miter; Lynn Locklear, a senator's adulterous wife; and Abigail Delorean, the materialistic wife of Washington's most powerful fixer. Things suddenly get complicated when Lynn's lover is murdered, and the chivalrous Carter volunteers to tell the police that he discovered the body when it was really Lynn who did. What happens afterward is quite a muddle with Carter turning into a social pariah as he investigates the case himself. One can surmise from random comments that there is a blackmail plot involving both Lynn's and Abigail's husbands as well as the Vice President. What does become clear is that clarifying the conspiracy plot is not Schrader's main concern here. The filmmaker appears more interested in examining how Carter deals with being an outcast in a community where who you know is all that matters. However, that would require having a rooting interest in Carter. This is where the film falters, as Schrader makes Carter a relatively opaque figure caught in the unsavory machinations of the Washington power machine.
Equally murky is the relationship between Carter and his lover Emek Yoglu, who photographs Abu Ghraib-like S&M images with the hope of using Carter's connections to have a gallery showing. Give Woody Harrelson credit for an audacious turn as Carter, but he unfortunately doesn't bring a convincing pulse to his eccentric character. Instead, he gives us a series of affectations in a jaundiced tribute to Truman Capote. Kristin Scott Thomas effectively uses her innately chilly persona as Lynn, but I wish Schrader used Lily Tomlin and the 83-year-old Lauren Bacall more effectively to flesh out Abigail and Natalie beyond winking one-liners. Willem Dafoe and Ned Beatty have glorified cameos as Lynn's and Abigail's husbands, and it's a cheeky move to have Tomlin and Beatty play husband and wife three decades after playing marrieds in Robert Altman's Nashville. Moritz Bleibtreu (Run Lola Run) does what he can with the underdeveloped role of Emek. The 2008 DVD is sparse on extras - just the original trailer, a few previews and a brief making-of short that has producer Deepak Nayar proclaiming Harrelson worthy of an Oscar. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-01
A Tour de Force for a Fine Cast of Seasoned Actors
THE WALKER (defined as a man who escorts rich ladies around town in their leisure) is both a pungent political comment and a fine mystery from Paul Schrader who both wrote and directed this smart film and had the good fortune to surround his tale with a fine cast of actors. It may not be a film for everyone, but it will satisfy viewers who tire of superficial fluff films, allowing time to ponder the way we live and converse today.
Carter Page III (Woody Harelson in one of his finest performances) is an openly gay, well-heeled, dapper man about town who devotes his life to pleasing the wealthy wives of men in high government levels in Washington, DC. Together with Abby (Lily Tomlin), Natalie (Lauren Bacall), Chrissy (Mary Beth Hurt), and Lynn (Kristin Scott Thomas) the group gossips, plays canasta in an expensive hotel parlor, and confides secrets that are surefire rumor fodder. Lynn is escorted by Carter to her lover's home for a tryst only to find the lover murdered. Carter attempts to protect Lynn from scandal only to become implicated himself. Carter discovers secrets about his own insecurities, and while he is solidly supported by his lover Emek (the excellent Moritz Bleibtreu), an artist of strange works that prove subtle background connotations of the mystery that is unwinding, he must face the realities of his decision when confronting husbands, lawyers, police, and intelligence agents (portrayed by such fine actors as Ned Beatty, Willem Defoe, William Hope and Geff Francis). The story is, in many ways, an examination of the corruption in Washington, DC - a fact that may explain why it did not enjoy a long theater run.
For viewers who appreciate fine dialogue and a smart story with well-delineated characters portrayed by superb actors, this is a film that should not be neglected. Grady Harp, June 08 |
