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With: Ed Harris, Richard Masur, René Auberjonois, Keith Szarabajka, Sy Richardson, Xander Berkeley, John Diehl, Peter Boyle, Marlee Matlin, Alfonso Arau, Pedro Armendáriz, Jr., Gerrit Graham, William O'Leary, Blanca Guerra, Miguel Sandoval, Rick Barker, Richard Edson
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Written by: Rudy Wurlitzer
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Directed by: Alex Cox
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MPAA Rating: R
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Running Time: 95
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Date: 12/04/1987
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Mercenary Seat
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Alex Cox's fourth feature film, Walker was received with great anger by the critics and was hardly seen by viewers. It was a film that nearly ended a career that began with Repo Man and Sid & Nancy. In fact, Cox never again worked in a major Hollywood studio. Written by the legendary Rudy Wurlitzer, Walker is sort of a biopic of William Walker (Ed Harris), but includes anachronisms, and other oddities that take it right out of the realm of realism. After a failed insurrection in Mexico and the death of Walker's fiancee (Marlee Matlin), Walker is hired to go to Nicaragua and overthrow the government, so that the vile Cornelius Vanderbilt (Peter Boyle) can have an open trade route. Walker does that, and then declares himself president. But soon after he becomes a megalomaniac and goes off the deep end. Walker is an exceedingly strange film, sometimes ugly, and frequently difficult. But it has a genuine sense of anarchy and of protest; it's a righteous film that believes in something, and breaks as many rules as it can. I think I admire it more than I like it, but it's a Cox film through and through. (Many of his favorite actors and colleagues, like Sy Richardson, Xander Berkeley, Dick Rude, Zander Schloss, and Joe Strummer, appear in small roles.)
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