Walken back to happiness in his battle against a giant
Percy vs Goliath (PG, 109 mins) Directed by Clark Johnson Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★
The famously intense, wolfish and unmoving Christopher Walken seems an unlikely choice to play Percy Schmeiser in Percy vs Goliath, the story of a Canadian farmer who took on the Monsanto Corporation, and kind of won.
Schmeiser was a successful crop grower, on land that had been in his family for generations.
He had extensive skill and experience in ‘‘seed saving’’, the old art and science of selecting the best seeds from every crop and banking them against future years, when the right mix of hardiness and virility might see his crops survive and his neighbours’ fail.
In 1998, Schmeiser received a letter from Monsanto’s lawyers, demanding money for Schmeiser’s ‘‘use’’ of their weedkiller-resistant strain of canola, which had been identified in Schmeiser’s fields.
Monsanto didn’t allege that Schmeiser had sowed the seeds. But, it argued, even though the seeds had blown in on the wind, or fallen from the back of a passing truck, Schmeiser was still liable. Thousands of other farmers had been similarly threatened, and had almost always paid up.
And it is here that the casting of Walken begins to make sense. The standard-issue myth of the plucky little guy taking on the corporation is pervasive and charming, but the reality is Schmeiser must have had a streak of unbendable orneriness a mile wide to even contemplate a fight with Monsanto’s phalanxes of lawyers and bottomless finances.
Walken, of course, nails this quality perfectly, presenting Schmeiser as a gritty old bastard of the old school, even while his marriage and his relationships with his family are being fractured by the stress of taking on a scrap that threatens to ruin them all.
Around Walken, Roberta Maxwell (Dead Man Walking) does many good things as Schmeiser’s wife Louise, stoically bearing the worst of Percy’s fallings out with friends and neighbours.
Christina Ricci, Martin Donovan and Zach Braff are all fine as composites of the Schmeisers’ allies and opponents in court.
Clark Johnson, who helmed several episodes of The Wire and also played the idealistic newspaper editor in season five of that show, directs with warmth and economy, always allowing cinematographer Luc Montpellier (Away From Her) to take his time on those ravishing northern landscapes and skies.
This is a good story, done well. It avoids the saccharine, without ever becoming gruelling.
That’s a deceptively tough balance to strike, but Percy vs Goliath hardly puts a foot wrong.