Running time: 107 minutes.
. . .

AT THE movies, we have begun to expect very little from Woody Harrelson. You could almost say he's lethargic: never one to take charge of a film, he sidles in, eases out that smug Texan drawl and flashes those blue eyes which somehow hide a thick, boxer's nose. He has a stoned charisma that sits easily on the big screen but he rarely wants to use it to illuminate character. In his last great role, The People Vs Larry Flynt, he pushed that drawl in on itself. But he was still Woody, still that cocksure hick despite the wheelchair and the sexual paralysis. In the 11 years since, it is difficult to think of a film he has shaken up and made his own.

There's a lot of dead wood.

The Walker is a film written and directed by veteran Paul Schrader and it is worth seeing just for a surprise turn from Harrelson: a lovely, complex performance as a homosexual society man in Washington DC.

He's a meticulous creation: Harrelson's Carter Page III with his pencil moustache, coiffed hairdo, designer suits and camp mannerisms recalls Richard Gere's Julian Kay in Schrader's 1979 film American Gigolo . . . a figure of exaggerated excess but shallow as an Armani suit pocket.

Around Carter, Schrader builds a portrait of Washington as a bitchy Wasp's nest with more than a tinge of decadence. The script was written during the Clinton era but there is a lot that could sit with the current administration. The result is a mature drama that dovetails into a less-than-satisfying thriller. But it is never less than engaging thanks to Harrelson's scrupulousness.

Carter Page III is a society "walker", or escort to the rich wives of Washington moguls, taking them to dinner to keep them entertained. He's like a queen bee, dishing out gossip like honey to his gaggle of female companions . . . a collection of screen greats in the form of Kristen Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall and Lily Tomlin. "This is sh*t central darling, " he tells his assembled ladies over cards, a kind of Truman Capote salon without the talent.

He conveys an aristocratic and conceited fatuousness by day. But this hides an empty personality . . .a character whose life is a big lie.

The only moment of candour comes when he returns home alone to a plush apartment and, with delicate finesse, removes a wig revealing a shiny tonsured head. You can bet not even his photographer lover Emek (Moritz Bleibtreu) has seen him this exposed.

Carter is on such intimate terms with the ladies, he escorts one of them . . . Lynn Lockner (Kristin Scott Thomas), the wife of a US senator . . . to an afternoon rendezvous with a lover. But then she discovers his murdered body and Carter decides to cover for her . . . it would be impolite not to.

"It would destroy everything, " she tells him. He goes back to wipe her prints and have a little gawk at the bludgeoned body.

Upon leaving, a neighbour spies him and he gives her a meek wave.

So Carter puts himself in the frame. But the film is not about the murder at all: it's really to do with Washington DC society's response to it. His lady friends no longer desire his company, he loses his job and the attorney general tries to use the case for political ends. Carter is passive to this abuse, struck by a moral torpor.

"You should have been more like your father, " Emetz tells him, referring to Carter Page II . . . a liberal senator who is regarded as a hero for his work on the Watergate trial.

Carter Page III is a great creation. And Schrader matches the opulence with a languorous pace and attention to detail. Yet the film doesn't really deliver.

You suspect Schrader wants to have a go at the decadence he first saw in the New York of Taxi Driver (he wrote the script), the same moral decay he sees now in the higher echelons of power. But while a younger director might have had a real go, there's a weariness in The Walker that just wants to let it be.