London,

The Walker

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Dir: Paul Schrader. Cast: Woody Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall

 

Country: US/UK. 2007. 107mins

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American gigolo in the frame

 

Suspect behaviour: Woody Harrelson has to turn sleuth after a good turn goes wrong

Nice turn: Kristin Scott Thomas as Lynn Locker

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Paul Schrader says that his latest film develops naturally from American Gigolo, his 1980 film which made Richard Gere's name. Only here, the gigolo character, now played by Woody Harrelson, is 50, gay and the non-sexual companion to a series of powerful Washington wives whose husbands are busy in Congress. How times have changed.

As Carter Page III, Harrelson wears a carefully pomaded wig, talks in a mincing, vaguely Southern drawl and plays court jester at the afternoon canasta table. The women he serves view him with amusement and affection, including Lynn Locker (Kristin Scott Thomas). Before he came out, she almost had an affair with him.

Now she has a lover whom she visits when her husband (Willem Dafoe) is away on business and whom she suddenly finds murdered in the flat they use for assignations. To protect her, the everhelpful escort tells the police that he, not Lynn, found the body.

This leads to him becoming a suspect and he has to turn sleuth himself to find out whodunnit. All the while, his German-Turkish lover (Moritz Bleibtreu) urges him to forget it all and settle down.

Largely made in London and the Isle of Man to keep the budget low, The Walker is more chamber work than a symphony, enlivened by nice turns from Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall and Lily Tomlin.

The problem is Harrelson's performance - I found him irritatingly unbelievable, largely because of the shadows of his very masculine previous parts. If you don't find him intriguing, the film is substantially lost.

It is certainly well made, a reminder that Schrader is a writer and director of some note. But the power of Mishima, Blue Collar or American Gigolo, his best films, is almost entirely absent, despite several obvious homages to his previous work.

The best line comes from Harrelson's character: "I'm not naïve," he says, "I'm just superficial."

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