Harris plays William Walker as a man convinced of his own personal and political self-righteousness: he is untouchable, walking through gunfire with the assuredness of a blessed man, the unstoppable force of American Imperialism. He believes in Manifest Destiny, which he (and American Capitalism) interprets as giving America every right to plunder and exploit lesser nations in the guise of bringing democracy and civilization to them. Director Cox holds America thus as the ultimate hypocrite and therefore refuses to portray a single sympathetic character. Matlin almost qualifies, but she is killed off early and the problem eliminated. The only nod to psychological character motivation, however, is the suggestion that Matlin was in fact Harris’ conscience and that after her death he retreated into a fantasy of total invincibility. His relationship to her is nevertheless treated as a maudlin farce, the film (as befitting a punk ethos) refusing to allow any validation of love or indeed of a worthwhile common humanity: the film of Walker is a condemnation of American humanity. Harris’ employers may claim to be bringing progress but it is clear that they consider Nicaragua a “f…ed up little country” of interest only for how in can make America and select Americans even richer. Harris though is perhaps unaware of how he is being used by his employers and how they will never allow his petty hold on power to threaten their greater self-interest.
Walker is the enabler of American Capitalist Imperialism and for that is an unredeemable monster, treated by director Cox as a self-styled visionary who in the end turns into a truly demented figure. He is obsessed by his own quasi-religious grandeur, and if representative of America implies a nation of madmen. To this end, all of his followers (or disciples if one is to follow a grotesque Christ analogy of sorts through the movie) are incompetent ruffians who seek violence and plunder in order to boost their own egos. They care for power only for how it serves them. However, Cox does not treat the Nicaraguan characters as very sympathetic either, depicting mainly manipulative local politicos or anonymous rebels. Therein, however, lays both the film’s problem and the experiment in its overall design. Although effective as a satire on the madness of American foreign policy in South America, it has no alternative or point of comparison to such madness – no semblance of any “sanity” is allowable apparently. Thus, every character is mad and peculiar, making for sly comedy perhaps but little actual drama or conflict in what is the intentional denial of a behavioural standard of reference. The deliberate historical anachronisms (Time magazines and helicopters) are used to imply that Walker represents a foreign policy that continued into Reagan’s America. The result makes the film of Walker an ambitious mess of a satire. read more
Wider Screenings DVD Attraction: Director Alex Cox discusses Walker
(courtesy of YouTube embedded video)