Fast-Walking (1982)

Don't Believe the Hype

Disturbing yet enthralling

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

In the opening shots we see James Woods, with his mad grin and his cackling, driving along a country road and passing a joint back and forth with his black friend, Charles Weldon. When they reach their destination, they step out of the car and Woods dons the jacket, tie, and cap of a prison corrections officer before stepping through the iron door and going to work. A CO smoking DOPE! This is supposed to shock the audience, and maybe it did, someplace up in the hills.The movie is an quirky mixture of comedy and drama. The prison's physical plant itself is in pretty good shape. It's not a hell hole like Sing Sing. The building and grounds are in Deer Lodge, Montana. They may not be the only man-made structure in Deer Lodge, although close to it, but they're certainly the most impressive, and they're not unpleasant, either inside or out.A flourishing narcotics business is going on among the inmates. It's run by Timothy Carey, looking spookily old, but after Carey is thoroughly beaten, Tim McIntire takes over. All the lower-echelon COs appear to know about it but nobody cares enough to make waves.Not that it's all hunky dory. The black inmates don't like the white inmates, and vice versa, another shock. The dramatic Schwerpunkt of the story is the arrival of a black liberation figure, Robert Hooks, whom the higher-ups plan to have accidentally knocked off. Hooks is treated sympathetically and so are his outside compañeros, who have arranged for Hooks' escape. Woods, seeing that the alternative is that Hooks is killed, involves himself in the escape plan as a matter of principle and of fifty thousand dollars.Woods plays his usual wisecracking self. The movie could have been called "Fast Talking." He not only smokes dope, he confiscates and instrumentalizes it from the madam of the local hang out, Susan Tyrell -- my supporting player in the much-neglected gem of an art house miniseries called "Windmills of the Gods." Or maybe it was "Rage of Angels." I've done my best to forget. Woods also runs a couple of hookers at Tyrell's place and gets to hose them down naked in the back yard after their strenuous labors. One of the hookers is Kay Lenz, who gives what I judged to be a magnificent, artistic performance in the nude, and also masturbating in the visitors room, giving head at her first meeting with Woods, and what not.Tim McIntire gave me a bit of a problem. He's supposed to be the head honcho among the inmates -- ruthless, bearded, a trusty with outside influence, narcotics big wig. Yet he has a low voice with every speech sound clearly articulated. He's a juggernaut of evil but sounds like a Vassar graduate. I understand he was an excellent musician too. He died at 41.The comic moments are a nice relief. In one scene, the sergeant in charge of the COs leads Woods into an office where Woods has left a roach on the desk. After chewing Woods out, the sergeant, M. Emmet Walsh, notices the joint, picks it up, and shouts, "What's going on here?" Woods plucks the joint from his fingers, glances at it sternly, and leaps out of the room, saying, "We'll get to the bottom of this."

James Woods plays his familiar time tested smarmy character as a cocky prison guard who is always playing the angles. Unfortunately this time he is being played. "Fast Walking" is a prison movie that revolves around two plots, one to spring a "Black" activist, and another to kill him. When Woods tries playing both ends against the middle, things don't turn out exactly as planned. The acting in "Fast Walking", especially by Woods is totally acceptable. M. Emmet Walsh is kind of wasted as another corrupt guard, while Kay Lenz is featured,constantly getting undressed. The plot is fine but the movie drags in places, and seems overlong at 115 minutes. - MERK

THE RAP, the book this movie was 'based' on was one of the most difficult books I've ever read. Yet I could not put it down. Raunchy, crude, foul, lewd...you name it, it had it. It also had some of the best characterizations of any novel I've ever read.Well, as for the flick...it was deplorable. I mean, Tim Mcintire as Wasco? Wasco was the baddest mutha...talking 'bout WASCO...Mcintire as Wasco is like casting Tim Conway as Charles Manson.What happened to the MAIN character in the book? Little Arv. He doesn't even exist in the movie...Fast Walking WAS NOT the main dude in the book. Why even name credit this thing with THE RAP? None of the spirit, atmosphere, nastiness, or drama of the book was captured in this movie.For me it was not only a disappointment, but a total waste of time and celluloid.

James Brawley's novel 'The Rap' was a long and beautifully written commentary on a great many things. It captured the atmosphere of its milieu (the 1960's) perfectly.Although the plot of the novel is held together by the glue of the conspiracy within the prison, the novel itself is filled with a rich cast of colorful, fully developed characters who force the reader think about all those things good novels do--life, death, love, hate, family bonds, freedom, bondage. James Woods is a fine actor, but this poor adaptation of a truly great novel was so thinly drawn that I didn't at first even recognize "Fast Walking" as having come from 'The Rap'. It's a decent little movie, but would have been better had the film makers tried to put more of Brawley's viewpoint, characters and keen observations into it. See the film first, then get a copy of 'The Rap'. If you do it the other way around as I did, you will be disappointed in the movie.