Walker (1987)
Universal DVD (region 2, 4)
d. Alex Cox; pr. Angel Flores Marini, Lorenzo O'Brien; scr. Rudy Wurlitzer; ph. David Bridges; m. Joe Strummer; ed. Alex Cox, Carlos Puente; cast. Ed Harris, Richard Masur, Marlee Matlin, Peter Boyle, John Diehl, Alfonso Arau, Gerritt Graham (95 mins)
English director Alex Cox studied in America before he made his name and reputation with two remarkable films concerned with the punk movement that had emerged from England in the 1970s and had worked (or wormed) its way to America: Repo Man and Sid and Nancy. It was the first of these that best suggested Cox’s apparent desire to explode American genres in favour of bizarre iconoclasm. Thus, after the success of Sid and Nancy, which had a much vaunted authenticity, he strayed into an arguably indulgent form of South American pseudo-western comedy with Straight to Hell, which again signalled the genre-based aestheticization of Cox’s punk sympathies in its refusal to let any convention remain uncriticized. Together with his subsequent film, Walker, this approach effectively lost him the critical support he had won with Sid and Nancy. Yet, his increased politicization in these deliberately disillusioning works was evident and Walker especially is most critical of American Imperialism, finding in the actual historical personage of mercenary William Walker (previously played by none other than Marlon Brando in the film of Burn!) the epitome of all that Cox apparently resents about America. However, the satirical intent of the film was buried under its refusal to consider any “normality”: after Sid and Nancy it seemed that Cox was determined to show a world gone mad. In real life, Cox would soon forego America for Mexico.
Walker tells the story of American mercenary William Walker (here played by an eccentric and impassioned Ed Harris) who was hired by the so-called robber barons (headed by rich American Cornelius Vanderbilt, played by Peter Boyle) ostensibly to bring some stability to 19th Century Nicaragua. However, despite any international altruism, they want to ensure (and enforce) this “stability” so that they can use the country as a strategic trade route rather than to enable the Nicaraguan people to control their own destiny in any way: such is North America’s foreign policy agenda in South America. Harris’ deaf wife (Marlee Matlin, fresh from her success in Children of a Lesser God) opposes his involvement but once she dies he readily agrees to the self-aggrandizing challenge and goes off to Nicaragua. With a band of mercenarial misfits, the incompetent refuse of humanity that gather in the great American homeland it seems, he soon conquers the country and establishes himself as its president. His brothers come, hoping to be made generals and assist in the plundering of the nation. However, the political system is complicated with revolution in the wind and the bosses that set him up now want him to change his means of power. When he refuses to bend to their economic pressures, his overthrow seems certain; especially once the population rebels and he uses violence to quell it. read more