LGM Film Club, Part 297: Walker

I don’t know why I had never seen Alex Cox’s Walker but I finally did. On the surface, the film is gold to me–a biopic of the lunatic “gray eyed man of destiny,” William Walker, who invaded Nicaragua to expand slavery and whose claims to presidency was recognized by the Pierce administration because of said slavery issues.

The result is pretty mixed though. That has nothing to do with Ed Harris, who is absolutely brilliant playing Walker. Perfect casting, great job by Harris. Who else would you want to play an insane military leader other than Brando before he washed up? But the script needed work. To begin with, at the start of the film, Harris is in a relationship with Marlee Matlin, which I thought, wow this could be interesting. And yeah, they communicate in sign language. She opposes his constant filibustering. She doesn’t want him to go to Nicaragua. But then, 10 minuest into the film, she dies for no explained reason. Kind of a big plot point to just drop in there!!!

The rest of the film is a clear homage to The Wild Bunch. In fact, there’s a cross with Sam Peckinpah’s name on it as they go through it about halfway through the film. The other major influences here are Apocalypse Now and Aguirre Wrath of God. Harris does a good Klaus Kinski. The other fascinating thing about the film is that it was filmed with collaboration from the Nicaraguan government during the period when the Sandinistas were something more than a cult of personality for Daniel Ortega. So the film is much more about American imperialism than it is about slavery. That’s one of the problems for me–it plays the Walker character as only turning to slavery when he needs to save his power, not as the reason for his actions. I can’t really look for accuracy in films and it does a good job with the anti-imperialist stuff, especially Harris’ parting speech when he tells the Nicaraguans that Americans will never leave them, with all the menace that implies.

I should say here as well that I have no real problem with the odd parts of modern culture that show up in a film about the 19th century–Walker on the cover of Time magazine, a helicopter showing up to save the last living Americans, etc. I wish it was more consistently applied, but whatever. Consistency though is probably the biggest issue in the film as it kind of fades into nonsense in the last half hour.

Again, one doesn’t watch an Alex Cox film for a fully realized vision. It’s mostly about the aesthetic. Certainly an interesting choice for the Nicaraguans. But it’s not an ineffective film for all that. Plus Peter Boyle shows up to play Cornelius Vanderbilt. Totally historically inaccurate, but whatever.