I recently stumbled across an interview with director Alex Cox on The Onion's AV Club. You probably remember Cox, if at all, from Sid & Nancy. This is a shame. During the interview, Cox is prodded over his "blacklisting" from mainstream cinema in 1987, only a year after his most mainstream success seemed all but certain to propel him to the big time. That year Cox released "Walker"; a period piece critique on the nation's ongoing involvement in Nicaragua starring Ed Harris. It was a disaster. Not the film itself mind you, but its box office returns and critical reception. The critics just flat-out HATED this thing, spewing vitriol from here to hell-and-gone and the studio torpedoed it by releasing it in only a handful of theaters. I have a hard time understanding this, and rarely has a film's reception seemed so incongruous with the actual item.
Were it not for The Onion, I never would have been aware of Walker's existence. I was so intrigued by the level of animosity surrounding the film at the time of its release that I gave in to grabbing it on Netflix. The Onion and Cox himself describe the film as an expensive, more cerebral spaghetti Western, a genre Cox is very fond of apparently. To call it a spaghetti Western is to place it among the likes of Sergio Leone's Man With No Name Trilogy, a compliment I think it highly deserves. But according to what the media of the day would have you believe, it utterly failed in its lofty ambitions. As such, I went in to my first viewing expecting something like a darkly satirical, manic "Heaven's Gate". You know, the film that singlehandedly destroyed United Artists and invites constant comparisons to this film.
After only a half hour's running time, I began to ask myself "well, this has been pretty great so far, a lot like 'Tombstone' actually... when does it get bad?" I kept waiting for it to turn sour, worthy of all that derision and full force attack by the likes of Roger Ebert and the New York Times. I kept waiting, and waiting, and then the film was over in a lean 90 minutes. When the credits rolled I thought "geez, that was actually... pretty damn good! What in Christ is going on around here?"
I've yet to find an even satisfactory answer to that question. The reviews simply don't seem to be referencing the same film. My original expectations were for, to quote Ebert, "a pointless and obnoxious travesty". A movie where the "poverty of imagination has to be seen to be believed." None of these descriptors in any way apply. They make no sense. Something is amiss. All critics are entitled to their own opinion, but this is like professing the sky is green. They kept calling it a "pointless bloodbath" with "a higher body count than Rambo". Naturally, I thought that there had to be another "Walker". Some clunker with Chuck Norris that went straight to VHS. This had to be the case because the shoot outs in the Walker I saw were relatively tame, not much compared to the Stallone/Schwarzenegger vehicles of the day.
The performances were terrific across the board, the plot and pacing were engaging and moved along at a clip and the set design and cinematography were above top-notch. It actually reminded me quite a bit of other Westerns around that time like "Tombstone" or "Silverado", films of the same ilk most critics will jump through hoops to defend.
Many critics seemed to take issue with the use of anachronisms (just in case you need to look that one up, it's a person, place, thing or custom that is not in its correct historical period). They're only used during one or two very brief scenes which I thought packed the perfect little punch. In these scenes, after Walker has run amok as the ego-maniacal dictator of the "New Nicaragua", Cox illustrates the direct 1850/1987 parallel. Side characters are seen reading modern issues of Newsweek or People. Walker is even proud of getting his picture on the front page of Time despite his infamy, as I'm sure Ollie North was. Absolutely nothing had changed at that point, and the last time I checked, the merits of American Imperialism was and has always been a worthy topic for debate.
There's maybe one or two other shots of someone in the foreground drinking a Coca Cola or driving a Toyota instead of a horse and buggy. These come in very quick succession and do not in any way throw the film off the rails. There is a rather large one toward the very end, but I found it paradoxically ties things together nicely in its random absurdity(think the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Sure, the film's message may be a little heavy handed but the whole mess with the Contras WAS a heavy issue. It took a large brush making clear broad strokes to do it justice.
Ebert's review is one of the most baffling and infuriating. In it he claims that as satire the film has no target. Was he not paying attention? At all? I was told the reason this movie was so terrible was because it belabored its comparisons to then and modern day Nicaragua. He even says the anachronisms were used "to show that it's all a joke, perhaps, or that today's headlines are the same as yesterday's". So he gets the target. It's right there! You nailed it!
Ed Harris is at his best here and he would go on to be great again not too long after in The Abyss. Cox was not so lucky, however. He sites this film as the reason he's no longer allowed to direct mainstream cinema. This is criminal. It would be like blacklisting Clint Eastwood for "Unforgiven". Think the comparison can't possibly be accurate? Do yourself and Cox a favor and rent it.
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