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Once upon a time Alex Cox was one of British cinema's brightest young stars.
He was making films in Hollywood, garnering critical success and spearheading a second generation of
fresh young filmakers in HW with strong, original voices inspired by & following in the footsteps of their
70's mentors (Lucas, Scorsese, Coppola, De Palma). Cox was the most promising of his contemporaries,
comparable in skill, daring & (encyclopaedic) knowledge to Scorsese. He was that rarest of things:
bold filmmaker & uncompromising critic able to back up his opinions on both sides of the camera. Pre-dating
modern cine-zealots like Mark Kermode & Kevin Smith, Cox was smart, outspoken & had the balls to put
his ideas to the test.
And then sometime in the 80's it all dried up. The financial repercussions of several big budget flops sent studios
reeling & the artistic liberation of the 70's turned into the corporate constraint of the 90's. Profit
became the new ideal and the only bet was a safe one.
It was somewhere during this u-turn that Cox made Walker. The
film had all the right ingredients: backed by Oliver Stone's regular collaborator Edward R. Pressman
& starring critical darling Ed Harris and a host of under-stated talent from Xander Berkley to Peter Boyle;
Joe Strummer handled the score while the film exhibited Cox's trademark anarchic post-modernism
blazing a path on (a still vital) MTV.
But between green light and final cut Hollywood suffered the aforementioned trangression. On top of this
the US had become drowned in Reaganism which augured badly for Walker whose content was essentially
a dissection of US interventionism in Central America, focusing on the 2-year, 19th century rule of
William Walker in Nicaragua. A topic that became even touchier with the advent of the Iran-contra affair
& the spotlight on the CIA backed Pinochet regime in Chile & various other dictatorial tinkerings in
Latin America including US backed terrorist attacks on Nicaragua itself. Cox even says on his website the
film was an opportunity to spend as much US money in Nicaragua at the time to support the people there.
It was ironic that Walker, though sharing much of the the same ground with the big hit of the time,
the sentimental Vietnam introspective Platoon, bombed. Platoon's depoliticized (& well
and truly tested) perspective only subtracted from the decade old issue while Walker, a bolder, far superior
effort, explored new & untested ground that was as contemporary as you could get not to mention
downright scathing of the US' role.
Unsurprisingly, Walker proved too sensitive & Cox's style too demanding for an audience weened on
Rambo & Red Heat.
Also, the finished product was a marketing nightmare. It was pitched to the UK video market as a western
of sorts - coincidently a genre experiencing a total drought as far as appeal was concerned. Sure,
Walker
had bandits, character's wearing hats & even riding horses but the film's deft defiance of
categorization as sarcastic comedy merged with historical ridicule & plain absurdity left it largely
homeless & an irritation to anyone trying to placate it's verve with strict definition. The
film frequently skipped over reason, motivation & character development in what we have come to recognize
as a Lynchian manner. For example, after Walker has taken control of Nicaragua under the patronage
of US tycoon Vanderbilt the infiltration of Americanism in the country is elluded to with Mercedes Benz'
overtaking horse drawn carts, mercanaries sipping Coca Cola & smoking Marlboro & modern day copies
of Time & Newsweek making brief cameos. Remember, this is the 19th century.
Nonetheless, Harris is spectacular as the idealist corrupted by power who
goes back (a la Animal Farm) on everything he ever held true. Cox's parody of history is hilarious as
the stiff-upper lips of Walker's fine men as recorded in his journal are contrasted
with their permanently quivering actuality - a quest for alcohol, women and sheep. Cox literally tears off the
blinkers of the past as upstanding men as portrayed in stomach-churning dalliances like Mel Gibson's
The Patriot are replaced with what they really were: soldiers, scoundrels, mercenaries at best. There
are no courageous battles, no victorious bravery, merely bloodshed and chance.
Shedding the anarchistic fanzine quality of Repo Man, Walker becomes a serious historical analysis
played out in punk form rife with anarchy, surrealism and subversion.
The viewer is left to wonder at times if this is Monty Pythonesque parody or the work of a deranged lunatic?
But this only serves to consolidate it's splendour. The film is a tremendous success and wonderful visual politic several years ahead of its
time, which, what with the growth in organized dissent, alternative media & political disdain has never
seemed so apt.
Cox is simply a genius. His films have been stupendous, incredible feats of the imagination, like Terry
Gilliam overdosing on blunt realism and as such
Hollywood has closed the door to him. Perhaps it's his
ability to send up everything that makes him so dangerous to the modern keepers of Western cinema.
While David Lynch & Kevin Smith may be critical of HW convention, they still retain a respect for the medium. Cox has none such.
He is a born piss-taker and as
such, a threat to everything HW holds true. You can't imagine Cox ever towing the line, evidenced by
his last project, the Mexican set, Spanish-language Highway Patrolman. It's a travesty
the talents of someone like Cox are wasted in the classroom. His films are an inspiration to anyone
who ever dreamed of making their own & the fact that his reach has been limited is an indication
of how low mainstream filmmaking has sunk & all the more reason to go out and fuck shit up
(cinematically that is).
Something Walker makes quite plain.
RATING: (c)Limer 2002
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Walker (1987)
