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.
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.