Walter HD Movie (2015)

A ticket-taker at the local cinema believes he is the son of God. He has agreed to decide the eternal fate of everyone he comes in to contact with.

Director:

Anna Mastro

Writer:

Paul Shoulberg

Stars:

Milo Ventimiglia, William H. Macy, Neve Campbell |

Storyline

Walter Gary Benjamin works as a ticket-taker slash ticket-tearer at the local Cineplex. When Walter was ten years old he made a deal with God to judge the eternal fate of everyone he comes in contact with in exchange for his father going to Heaven. Walter manages his daily routine and his worrisome mother until the mysterious Greg shows up and forces Walter to confront the meaning of his life, and his future.A ticket-taker at the local cinema believes he is the son of God. He has agreed to decide the eternal fate of everyone he comes in to contact with.

User Reviews 

I had the thrilling opportunity to see the film "Walter" on January 2 at Palm Springs Film Festival. The movie was amazing. The cast consists of huge name actors: William H Macy, Virginia Madsen, Andrew J West, Neve Campbell, Brian White, Milo Ventimiglia, Jim Gaffigan, Peter Facinelli, etc! The entire cast brings so much to the movie. There is depth and substance to each role. I laughed throughout the movie at its witty lines. I cried when the main character starts going through the grieving process. If you're like me and crave movies that make you feel, then this movie is for you! There has never been a movie like this one. It's truly one of a kind. You must see it!
Walter, a mild mannered ticket-taker at a movie theater believes himself to be the son of God with the responsibility to judge whether people will spend eternity in heaven or hell. When a ghost stuck in purgatory interrupts Walter's daily routine his world is turned upside down forcing him to reassess the meaning of his life.

Plot Summary

Walter works at the movie theater in a small town, where he believes he’s the son of God, tasked by the Man upstairs with deciding whether those around him are going to heaven or hell. Whether audiences are also willing to believe this original if somewhat half-baked premise is another question entirely. While “Walter” harks back to so many stylized ’90s-era indies — and conceivably might have played a festival like Sundance had it been made two decades earlier — these days, such an overly cutesy, credibility-straining dramedy is fated to disappear into VOD purgatory, following its modest theatrical release in March.
Crafted with equal doses of poignancy and pap, Paul Shoulberg’s screenplay (expanded from his 2010 short, directed by someone else entirely) caught the eye of first-time helmer Anna Mastro, who embraces the sincerity at the script’s core, but doesn’t quite know how to handle its more offbeat sense of magical realism. How, exactly, does anyone take its weird conceit seriously?
Affectlessly played by the otherwise affable Andrew J. West (Gareth on “Walking Dead”), the story’s protagonist is a clean-cut, blank-faced, slightly obsessive-compulsive boy named (what else?) Walter. Except in the real world, hardly anyone calls their kids that anymore. (To quote Esquire magazine, “the word looks like the chicken skin of an old man’s calf.”)
Every morning, this contrived young man awakens to a symphony of alarm clocks to find his clothes neatly ironed and folded by his equally artificial mother (Virginia Madsen), whose only other character trait is an inexplicable need to cook eggs, buying dozens at a time, then scrambling them up for every meal. Against this kooky backdrop, Walter informs us about his peculiar mandate: With one glance, he judges any and all who cross his path, which the film intends to be humorous, but instead feels merely capricious. (Why does this twerp get to decide the eternal fate of those he barely knows? And why doesn’t he actually engage with anyone, instead of walking around in his bizarre autistic bubble?)
“Walter” plays it fast and loose with the religious implications of its wobbly premise. For the record, Walter explains, he’s not Jesus: “That was someone else, with a beard.” But if Jesus was a carpenter, why shouldn’t his successor be tearing movie tickets at the local megaplex?
When not passing final judgment on total strangers, this inexplicably empowered nobody maintains awkward friendships with an over-sexed jerk (a funny if profane character bit by “Heroes’” Milo Ventimiglia), the pretty concession-stand clerk (Leven Rambin) and his checked-out slob of a boss (Jim Gaffigan). Not that any of these connections promises much potential, least of all the wispy hint of romantic intrigue with the film’s eunuch-like hero.
Instead, aided by an irreverent local shrink (William H. Macy), Walter spends most of the movie dealing with unfinished business, helping a stranded soul (Justin Kirk) only he can see figure out if he’s damned or not, while getting the bottom of a mystery involving a local nurse (Neve Campbell) with an ambiguous connection to Walter’s dead dad (Peter Facinelli).
Macy brings just the right amount of quirk to his highly unprofessional-sounding therapy sessions, providing a glimpse of what director Mastro might be able to do in future projects when paired with good-sport collaborators. The film’s few additional flourishes — such as Rambin basking on a bed of freshly popped corn, a la “American Beauty’s” rose-petal scene — feel far from fresh. The same goes for the canned flashbacks depicting Walter as a carefree kid, though these scenes do hold the key to the movie’s surprisingly cathartic payoff.