After hearing about her for years,I have this year being pleased to finally see Kristin Scott Thomas (KST!) in the stylish Neo-Noir Love Crime and the earthy Drama Leaving.Shortly after watching Leaving,I was intrigued to find that the BBC were going to show one of KST's English language movies,which led to me walking on by.The plot:As a photo of his tobacco farming granddaddy hangs above him, Carter Page III finds the only way that he can get near the power player in Washington is to be an escort to their wives.One of Page's main clients is Lynn Lockner,who has been having an affair with lobbyist Robbie Kononsberg (who gave Page bad advice on the stock market.) Going to pay him a visit,Lockner finds Kononsberg murdered. As Page tries to help Lockner keep the affair hidden,he begins to walk out of step with the elite.View on the film:Continuing on the major theme of his work,the screenplay by writer/director Paul Schrader walks with a Neo-Noir of the outsider looking in. Surrounded by the elite, Schrader makes Page a loner whose every feature from his hair to psychological intimacy is part of a façade for the client. Finding Kononsberg dead, Schrader splinters the Neo-Noir with cynical political shots over what power players will do to keep their piece of the pie.Keeping Page as an outsider, Schrader aims for a cerebral Noir.Whilst this approach does lead to the viewer feeling as detached from the high-life as Page,it causes the title itself to be caved in a blank,strung-out atmosphere,where the murder charge and the characters themselves are emotionless and paper thin.Entering to the wonderful synch-Blues (!) score from Anne Dudley, Schrader and cinematographer Chris Seager swagger with a Neo-Noir style,lining Page's house in deep neon blue,and the crawling camera moves giving the film a dry Erotic Thriller mood.Burning up the riches of the elite, Schrader soaks the movie in a peculiar lime green that subtly expresses how rotten and mouldy the power they hold onto is. Refusing to do press for the flick due to hating his own performance, Woody Harrelson does lay on the Southern Charm a bit too thick,but does capture Page being a completely detached Noir loner on the scene.Adding a touch of Film Noir and Neo-Noir class, Lauren Bacall and Willem Dafoe give terrific, greasy performances as Natalie Van Miter and Larry Lockner,whilst the elegant KST smoothly threads the films cold pessimism with Lynn Lockner concern about becoming an outsider,as the walker walks away.

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.

Lynn Lockner (Kristin Scott Thomas), Abigail Delorean (Lily Tomlin) and Natalie Van Miter (Lauren Bacall) play canasta weekly with Carter Page III (Woody Harrelson), an openly gay escort. This is where they gossip about Washington society and politicos.Carter's father was a Senator, and Carter has transformed himself into an escort for Washington women whose husbands are otherwise occupied. Harrelson is excellent in this role.He has a special relationship with Lockner (God, I love Kirsten Scott Thomas). He takes her to meet up with someone who takes care of needs he can't. On the latest trip, he becomes embroiled in a tragedy to protect her honor.He becomes a prime suspect in the murder, but he emerges with his pride and honor intact, as more of a man than the father he could not live up to.

This film is one giant pant load. Paul Schrader is utterly lost in his own bad screenplay. And his directing is about as comatose as it can be without his actually having been sleepwalking during the process. The worst though is Woody Harrelson, whom I ordinarily like when he's properly cast. He plays "the walker", a homosexual man in D.C. who plays social companion to the bored wives of the Washington elite. He couldn't have been more one dimensional if he had been cut out of a magazine and bounced around in front of the camera on a popsicle stick. His "southern accent" is that "off the rack" version that decrescendos from the beginning to the end of every line he delivers, as though the heat and humidity of the South is still draining him of every ounce of energy. It is monotonous. But, his is not the worst accent in the movie. His "boyfriend", played by Moritz Bleibtreau, attempts to affect some kind of a Mid East accent that is so clumsy he can barely deliver the bad lines written for him. He is incapable of rolling his r's in spite of the fact that in real life he is German, and speaks several languages - one of them being Italian! That's kind of a good reason to cast someone else don't ya think? From the story, to the screenplay, to the directing, to the camera work, to the performances by the leads, this movie is bad from beginning to end. The only tolerable moments in this film came from three supporting actresses: Lily Tomlin, Lauren Bacall, and Kristin Scott Thomas. Only these three managed to make it through this movie with their dignity in tact. In fact, all three are excellent, in spite of being trapped in a really bad film. Ufortunately, no one could ever be good enough to redeem this endless series of flaws. If you like these three actresses, watch them in something else. This movie is not worth your time.