THE WALKER

THE WALKER is the new thriller written and directed by Paul Schrader, the acclaimed screenwriter of TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. It is part of a trilogy beginning with the well-known 1980 thriller AMERICAN GIGOLO starring Richard Gere and the lesser-known 1992 thriller LIGHT SLEEPER.

In the story, Woody Harrelson plays Carter Paige, the homosexual son of a dead fictional politician who stood up against President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Carter is a walker, a male companion to rich women in Washington, D.C. who drives them around and keeps them entertained with witty conversation.

Carter’s world is turned upside down when the male lover of his long-time female friend, the Senate Minority Leader’s wife, turns up murdered. Carter actually drove Lynn to a tryst with this man, whereupon Lynn discovered the body.

Carter covers up for Lynn and calls the police, but this makes him a prime suspect. The fact that the dead man once convinced Carter and many other people in Washington to make a bad investment in a company now under Congressional investigation doesn’t help.

Carter decides to investigate the crime on his own. His male lover tries to help him out, but it puts both their lives in danger.

As Carter investigates the murder and the police put more pressure on him, his rich, politically connected female friends desert him. Hurting him more is the fact that his close friend Lynn has made herself incognito, which leaves Carter out to dry.

As a mystery thriller, THE WALKER is well done. Woody Harrelson does a fine job portraying the protagonist, who is an appealing character, psychologically speaking. Thus, the movie makes you root for him, although in the end the things that happen to him confirm his sarcastic, cynical left-wing political attitudes about American politics.

Despite some leftist, politically correct and anti-American comments in a couple scenes, the main political message of the movie is that American politics are corrupt. In fact, Lynn tells Carter at one point that all the politicians in Washington, D.C. just want to cause trouble for one another while jockeying for power. This gives the movie an apparent humanist and cynical worldview. The upshot of all this is that Carter eventually decides that he no longer cares to be accepted by his former rich friends, whose society is, according to this movie, based on hypocrisy, corruption and betrayal.

This, apparently, reflects the humanist position of writer/director Paul Schrader, who, though he once attended a Christian college as a young man, told MOVIEGUIDE® recently that he is now a committed atheist who believes that Judaism and Christianity come from the same mold as the 9/11 Muslim terrorists and other Muslim jihadists. It should also be noted that Schrader said he believes that political statements by Republican politicians against the left-wing homosexual agenda are “sexual hypocrisy” because there are closeted homosexuals within the GOP leadership.

Here, it is interesting to note the hypocritical, immoral actions of the homosexual characters in this pro-homosexual movie. For instance, the protagonist’s male lover cheats on him with a young man he meets in bar, then later professes his “love” for the protagonist. Then, there is the fact that homosexual protagonist actually drives his married female friend to her adulterous tryst with her own male lover. Like many pro-homosexual movies, this shows that those people who preach the homosexual agenda and revel in the perverse sexual practices that is homosexuality, as well as those homosexually active people who “come out of the closet,” are just as morally corrupt and hypocritical as anyone else, including their opponents.

The Good News is that, through Jesus Christ, God offers us repentance and forgiveness for all of our sins, including sinful homosexual behavior and marital infidelity. This does not, however, let us off the hook from preaching the moral laws that God has established for all people everywhere. Thus, a self-declared follower of Jesus, or member of a recognized Christian church, who publicly accepts homosexuality, adultery or any other sin – as many leaders, pundits and celebrities have done – is making a mockery of his or her faith. Such people are the ultimate hypocrites and false teachers. Their misguided public actions and speeches present a grave public danger to all the world’s children. We must publicly and/or privately call them to repent and turn to Jesus.