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English
Region 2
Region 2
Product Description
William Walker and his mercenary corps enter Nicaragua in the middle of the 19th century in order to install a new government by a coup d'etat...
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is the DVD edition of Walker, a historical piece and true story as directed by Alex Cox who is a legend for his punk-rock masterpiece Repo-Man. The short of it is that if you like your history by the book you probably won't like this, but if you keep an open mind you might just see past that and love this movie for it's humor and the underlying message. Although sometimes a bit slowpaced overall it's just an original and funny movie.
I must also correct the synopsis, since this movie takes place in the 19th century Walker wasn't executed in 1957 but 1857...
I would also reccomend seeing Repo Man to anyone who likes this movie, though that dosen't necessarily go the other way around.
I must also correct the synopsis, since this movie takes place in the 19th century Walker wasn't executed in 1957 but 1857...
I would also reccomend seeing Repo Man to anyone who likes this movie, though that dosen't necessarily go the other way around.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Best remembered (if at all) as the film that comprehensively destroyed Alex Cox's mainstream career, it's hard to see what caused such vitriolic offense at the time. Cox and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer's take on the unbalanced self-deceiving `idealist' mercenary William Walker's intervention in Nicaragua to protect Cornelius Vanderbilt's financial interests there, setting off a century of disastrous American interference, is not particularly subtle, but then William Walker wasn't exactly a subtle man ("Clearly this is no ordinary a**hole," judges one of the more astute locals). With a visual style clearly inspired by spaghetti westerns and Sam Peckinpah, a contradictory narration - what you hear isn't what you see, with Walker's own third person narration frequently completely at odds with the farcical reality - and a slew of critic infuriating anachronisms, it was received with a mixture of outrage and contempt that makes the critical reception of Domino look like a triumph of Schindler's List proportions.
It's not a great movie, but it's certainly not the disaster its been painted, and even the at first jarring anachronisms are fun - Walker gets the cover of both Time and Newsweek, interviewers use tape recorders while Vanderbilt has a computer displaying stock market prices in his office - but perhaps should have been introduced earlier: however, there's no doubting the pertinence of the final arrival of trigger-happy helicopter gunships to evacuate the US citizens. Indeed, the film seems a more pertinent commentary on American foreign policy now than it did in 1987. Harris is on fine self-righteous form as the `short idealist,' short on ideals but big on a sense of divine purpose even though he has no idea what that purpose actually is from one moment to the next. With a concise running time and a great Joe Strummer score, it's an ambitious and often entertaining oddity. Just don't go in expecting a history lesson or a straight biography.
Sadly, there are no extras at all on the widescreen PAL Region 2 disc, but Criterion have certainly put together an impressive package of new extras for a film that was for so long held in such unwarranted disdain for their excellent Region 1 NTSC disc, including an excellent audio commentary by Alex Cox and Rudy Wurlitzer, documentary Dispatches From Nicaragua, audio essay by Linda Sandoval, stills galleries and detailed booklet - though be warned that the theatrical trailer and the featurette of Cox ruefully going through the film's savage reviews are both well hidden. It's not perfect by any means, but there's too much that's interesting about the film to dismiss it entirely out of hand.
It's not a great movie, but it's certainly not the disaster its been painted, and even the at first jarring anachronisms are fun - Walker gets the cover of both Time and Newsweek, interviewers use tape recorders while Vanderbilt has a computer displaying stock market prices in his office - but perhaps should have been introduced earlier: however, there's no doubting the pertinence of the final arrival of trigger-happy helicopter gunships to evacuate the US citizens. Indeed, the film seems a more pertinent commentary on American foreign policy now than it did in 1987. Harris is on fine self-righteous form as the `short idealist,' short on ideals but big on a sense of divine purpose even though he has no idea what that purpose actually is from one moment to the next. With a concise running time and a great Joe Strummer score, it's an ambitious and often entertaining oddity. Just don't go in expecting a history lesson or a straight biography.
Sadly, there are no extras at all on the widescreen PAL Region 2 disc, but Criterion have certainly put together an impressive package of new extras for a film that was for so long held in such unwarranted disdain for their excellent Region 1 NTSC disc, including an excellent audio commentary by Alex Cox and Rudy Wurlitzer, documentary Dispatches From Nicaragua, audio essay by Linda Sandoval, stills galleries and detailed booklet - though be warned that the theatrical trailer and the featurette of Cox ruefully going through the film's savage reviews are both well hidden. It's not perfect by any means, but there's too much that's interesting about the film to dismiss it entirely out of hand.
Format:DVD
Before Rambo and Oliver North there was Walker. Walker, in which the life of a filibuster of Manifest Destiny is told, is more than an action movie. It is like a critic of US imperialism in Central America.
The director Alex Cox who is renowned for films like Repo Man and Walker has been blacklisted in America for his denial to be involved in the "American dream" or "fight for democracy". This puts a great deal of importance on the film for me. The film is shot in Nikaragua during the dirty war against Contras which are sponsored by the US against the democratically elected leftist government of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas.
Ed Harris portrays the maybe over-educated Walker trying to come to terms with the revolutionary period he finds himself born into.(During the shooting of film, on his insistence the whole crew took a forced march of 10 miles to feel & experience the hardships of the Walker's band) The railroad and waterways tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt is portrayed by the late Peter Boyle, magnificiently. After failing to annex a part of Mexico by his mercaneries, Walker accepts the invitation to end the civil war in Nikaragua for the benefit of US & Vanderbilt's interest. He conquers the country after a series of battles only to be routed in the end.
The film is a unique example of usage of anachroisms radically but very impressively. In one instance you see Walker showing himself on the cover of a TIME magazine, in another US Marines arrive to the scene via a helicopter saving the US citizens from the shootings. I strongly recommend the final closing credits of the film as they are of great historical value.
As a strong anti-imperialist film I am not suprised it has only grossed 250k in the US. After you have watched this well sewn together film of drama, satire, shocking naked truth and history, I bet you will not be sorry.
The director Alex Cox who is renowned for films like Repo Man and Walker has been blacklisted in America for his denial to be involved in the "American dream" or "fight for democracy". This puts a great deal of importance on the film for me. The film is shot in Nikaragua during the dirty war against Contras which are sponsored by the US against the democratically elected leftist government of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas.
Ed Harris portrays the maybe over-educated Walker trying to come to terms with the revolutionary period he finds himself born into.(During the shooting of film, on his insistence the whole crew took a forced march of 10 miles to feel & experience the hardships of the Walker's band) The railroad and waterways tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt is portrayed by the late Peter Boyle, magnificiently. After failing to annex a part of Mexico by his mercaneries, Walker accepts the invitation to end the civil war in Nikaragua for the benefit of US & Vanderbilt's interest. He conquers the country after a series of battles only to be routed in the end.
The film is a unique example of usage of anachroisms radically but very impressively. In one instance you see Walker showing himself on the cover of a TIME magazine, in another US Marines arrive to the scene via a helicopter saving the US citizens from the shootings. I strongly recommend the final closing credits of the film as they are of great historical value.
As a strong anti-imperialist film I am not suprised it has only grossed 250k in the US. After you have watched this well sewn together film of drama, satire, shocking naked truth and history, I bet you will not be sorry.
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