Walker Details

Made only three years after his brilliant Repo Man, this highly stylised film from director Alex Cox shows him as only a shadow of that former self, with the stiffly told story of American mercenary William Walker who, backed by a tycoon, took over as President of Nicaragua in the mid-19th century. Toting slogans such as “One must act with severity or perish!”, Walker was eventually hoist with his own petard when the locals decided they'd had enough of his “ordered discipline”. Ed Harris is bombastically charismatic, though the anti-American rant, which may have been justified, proves too one-sided for real drama which may be why the film reached few British screens.

Funded by grasping capitalist Cornelius Vanderbilt (Boyle), 19th century American adventurer Walker (Harris) and his... read more on Time Out