What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

In Paul Schrader's stylised depiction of a decidedly pre-Trump Washington, the political establishment play high-stakes games of money, power and sex behind a veneer of perfect civility; sometimes, people get hurt, or have to be sacrificed, but nothing is vulgar is ever permitted to be seen. Caught up in the web is Carter Page (ironically, also the name of a real Trump adviser), a Southern gentleman and governor's son, but also a gay man, who makes his money as a paid companion to well-connected, elderly ladies; and who stands to be written off as collateral damage in a war that is not his own. The film is a thriller but mostly consists of conversations, in which what is unsaid is as important as what is spoken; it reminded me of the plays of David Hare. In the telling ending, one of Page's friends expresses her main feeling with respect to his loyalty: surprise.

With The Walker, director Paul Schrader continues the the isolated man theme he's explored several times in the past with Taxi Driver, Hardcore, Raging Bull, American Gigolo, Light Sleeper, and even Affliction to some degree. Woody Harrelson is Carter Page, a walker for society women who must make public appearances without their spouses or with someone if they have no spouse. Harrelson has a stable of women he works with including the legendary Lauren Bacall, who is amusing indeed in a limited role, Lily Tomlin, and Kristen Scott-Thomas. Scott-Thomas is Harrelson's focal woman in the group and of Schrader's plot. She pays a visit to her lover with Harrelson in tow only to discover the lover murdered. Harrelson, of course, becomes the prime suspect. As Carter Page, he undergoes somewhat of a personality change as he is forced to shed the superficial airs he puts on for his society friends in favor of taking a more active role in the investigation that follows in order to simultaneously save his own skin and maintain his integrity with his society friends.Schrader has always had an ear for dialog and has drawn excellent characterizations, and the characters in The Walker are no exception. Woody Harrelson is quite different as Carter Page than most audience members are used to seeing him. The cinematography by Chris Seager is rich with detail and serves as a counterpart to the artificiality of Washington politics surrounding the goings-on in the film. In tact is Schrader's isolated man against himself, others, and society as in all of the previously aforementioned films. The film tends to drag just a tad but accelerates nicely after the murder. It's not one of Schrader's best, but average Schrader is still above average when compared to other filmmakers. Ned Beatty has a key small role as a politician, and Willem Dafoe, a Schrader favorite, also has a small role. *** of 4 stars.

To be a walker is to be something if not someone or, if you prefer, a walker is someone without being something. Whatever way you look at it, there is something that it's desperately not there. Woody Harrelson and his character, act. Acting as a way of life. Trying to be trivial all the time runs the risk of making triviality something truly important. We're standing on the sidelines looking in without seeing because if we saw, well, if we saw, things may be dramatically different. This is a film by Paul Schrader - a master in getting into the hearts and souls of the outsiders - and Harrelson is an outsider living in, with a very specific awareness. Great! A film to savor and listen to, attentively. Not very often one can actually say that. Other than Harrelson, Lauren Bacall, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily Tomlin shine.

I, too, had my troubles with this film, but I will not rehash the plot nor evaluate the actors, all of whom were at the top of their form. What amazed me so much is that a film could trust the audience enough to let us infer what remained unsaid by the characters. This is something like a James novel in which nothing happens. Isabel (in Portrait of a Lady) sits and stares at a fire for a whole chapter. Nothing happens. Yet her fate is sealed by the time the fire has burned down. Of course, the modern movie-goer will find this boring and the film will provoke cries of 'worst film of the century.' But once I learned to trust the movie's reticence and pace, I found that I was able to follow a thought process that became a collaboration between the film- maker and myself. This is so rare in movies that it will invoke fury or yawns in those used to cheap thrills and pat plots. True, the plot in this film is almost nonexistent. But then this is not an ordinary movie.My collaboration with Schrader and Harrelson resulted in some wry reflections on my own life, on loyalty and disloyalty. And on the mistaken idea that manners and superficiality will be enough to mask "the horror and the boredom" of life.