Games people play

The Walker

Crit

In the opening scene, three women (Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall, and Lily Tomlin) and their elegant pal and Washington scion (Woody Harrelson) enjoy their weekly canasta and dish session, devoting a lot more energy to the dish than to the cards. That's some serious cinematic firepower, and the scene is promising more because of that quartet than because of the self-consciously witty dialogue. But there are a lot of promises that don't get kept, within the story and between it and us.

Harrelson plays Carter Page III without the standard gay cliché, with dignity and even heroism. Wouldn't it be nice if that weren't so unusual as to be quite such cause for celebration? The rest of the cast, which also includes heavy hitters Ned Beatty and Willem Dafoe, is wasted in a murder mystery whose murkiness isn't enough to make us really care.

And I'm sorry, but someone has to tell Betty Bacall, god love her, that every Botox injection just makes her line delivery--never exactly fluid, but who cares when she's forever 19 and teaching us how to whistle on a DVD?--more animatronic. And displaying her octogenarian cleavage is unquestionably brave, but what purpose is served?