The Walker

Almost 30 years ago, Paul Schrader made American Gigolo, a stylish mystery about a male prostitute framed for murder that perfectly captured the paranoid vapidity of post-Watergate America. Schrader’s latest, the barely released The Walker, is a stylish mystery about a gay male escort (basically well-bred arm candy for society dames) framed for murder that tries to capture the paranoid acidity of post-9/11 America. But besides the neat symmetry with Schrader’s 1980 masterpiece and an eerily modulated performance by Woody Harrelson as the escort, The Walker is fairly devoid of dramatic thrust, with too many underwritten and uninteresting characters. It works best as a glimpse of upper-crust D.C. society, which Schrader views as a savage mix of urban glamour and gentile Southern aristocracy.