WOODY Harrelson is very good as a gay real estate agent providing company for neglected Washington wives in “The Walker,” Paul Schrader’s quasi-remake of “American Gigolo.”
Like Richard Gere in the earlier film, Harrelson’s Carter Page is as superficial as he is entertaining – at least, until he gets mixed up in a murder case.
When he escorts senator’s wife Lynn Lockner (the
seldom-seen Kristin Scott Thomas, channeling Hillary what’s-her-name) to a tryst, she encounters a corpse.
So she asks her longtime pal Carter to cover up for her to protect the career of her ambitious hubby (Willem Dafoe).
Carter’s good deed has the effect of making him the chief suspect in the murder and eventually a pariah among Lynn’s cronies, whom he has long been joining weekly for canasta and regaling with D.C. gossip.
Carter faces some homophobic, no-holds-barred questioning by the FBI – allowing Schrader some post-9/11 commentary – at the same time Carter and his young paparazzo lover (Moritz Bleibtreu) are trying to track down the real killer.
Harrelson’s charming flamboyance – seen to great effect in “No Country for Old Men” – is a great fit for Carter, who carries no small amount of self-
loathing under his carefully coifed toupee.
Schrader seems much less interested than the film’s mystery aspects than in portraying the vipers in Carter’s milieu, including Ned Beatty and Lily Tomlin as another senator and his wife.
The best lines in “The Walker” are reserved for the legendary Lauren Bacall, who delivers them with undiminished panache. At one point she advises Carter, “Memory is a very unreliable organ,” then adds after a beat: “It’s right up there with the penis.”
THE WALKER
Running time: 107 minutes. Rated R (profanity, violence, nudity). At Angelika and the 64th and Second.