Walker | Blu-ray

Alex Cox is never a director to take the easy route toward telling a story, not even when it comes to accounts of real historical figures. Alongside Sid & Nancy and Repo Man, Cox's biopic of William Walker stands among the director's best known and most well regarded works.

Walker was a pro-slavery mercenary who famously led an expedition to Nicaragua, where he installed himself as President in one of several attempts to establish new American slave colonies outside of North America. Portrayed here by Ed Harris, Cox paints a portrait of the man in an initially sympathetic light, that only becomes more damning as his dictatorial goals in South America are fulfilled.

Often surreal, and never failing in it's commentary on modern American imperialism, Walker is an entirely ambitious and beautifully rendered project. A deconstruction of the bio-pic with the aim of telling a more important story.