Cast:
Cooper Hoffman (Raymond Garraty [#47]), David Jonsson (Peter McVries [#23]), Garrett Wareing (Billy Stebbins [#38]), Tut Nyuot (Arthur Baker [#6]), Charlie Plummer (Gary Barkovitch [#5]), Ben Wang (Hank Olson [#46]), Jordan Gonzalez (Richard Harkness [#49]), Joshua Odjick (Collie Parker [#48]), Mark Hamill (The Major), Roman Griffin Davis (Thomas Curley [#7]), Judy Greer (Ginnie Garraty), and Josh Hamilton (William Garraty) Directed by Francis Lawrence.
Review:
“To me, that’s what the whole thing is about. The whole thing is about the two of them bonding, and kind of falling in love in a weird way. The conflict of what they’re there for and what they’ve been through in the past only brings them closer together. The sacrifices they make for one another, to me, is the whole movie.”
There are many Stephen King stories that have been turned into a film or adapted for television, but, yes, The Long Walk finally gets its due for the first time ever. Apparently, the book was the first that Stephen King wrote, as he started writing it in high school (which he has stated was not done "consciously" about the ongoing carnage of the Vietnam War) and finished it by the time he started attending the University of Maine in 1967. Years later, having become an established writer, The Long Walk was published in 1979 (under his pen name Richard Bachman, because authors weren't expected to release books so quickly). A cursory glance at a summary of the book reveals a few distinct details that the film is different from: 100 participants are walking on a road that must average a pace of four miles per hour (no I am not correcting that to kilometers) that gets warnings if they miss the threshold for 30 seconds. And yes, you can't stop for anything (in real life, you could last a few days without walking, albeit with growing levels of severe damage to one's insides). Apparently, there had been quite a few filmmakers that wanted to do a film adaptation that ranged from George A. Romero to Frank Darabont before it came together in 2023 under the direction of Francis Lawrence, who you might remember as the director of The Hunger Games follow-up films; the movie was written by JT Mollner.
We live in a nation that seems to love watching suffering, don't we? The age of the Internet accelerated our curiosity to overdrive for watching people do damn near anything out of desperation (this of course extends to watching "political streamers", because hey, if you are going to hear about the news, you might as well be angry too). Debate all you want where it all may go in the future in terms of bloodlust when it comes to how we treat the deaths of others, it probably correlates with people complaining that their country has sucked for several decades now. So, in a movie with a dystopian setting that wants to fight against a malaise of laziness with the ultimate expression of fitness, it only makes sense for me to treat it as basically a horror movie* where the greatest enemy is inevitability. Everyone dies, but some will suffer far more than others in that last moment spent on the great rock. With that in mind, this is a pretty good movie in the execution of tension and brotherhood that comes out even with all the inevitable qualities that come with its 108-minute runtime. Most of its time is spent on that one road with only cursory glances at the countryside (one member of the landscape seen is a cat with no eyes) to go along with the sights and sounds of people being shot. In that sense, the ensemble is exceptionally talented to hold up the task of a movie that could've easily had a chance to go off the rails with less confidence to hold things together (really I'm more surprised someone had not made a low-budget cheapie of this before). Hoffman and Jonsson each carry the film with a bond that is fascinating to see build and build as the film goes on, selling the curdling fear that comes with seeing people die and die that might as well make the possible winner the biggest victim of them all. Sure, you might find moments of levity within the road of gloom, but you have a group that sells the tension that comes with knowing and losing people who it might hurt more to remember their name (as opposed to the numbered tag they wear, which seems to fit the times more if you think about it). You get to see the personalities of these people wither down to the logical conclusion, be it a bully who sees death right in front of them, wisecrackers or a self-realization about one's perceived value. Calling it a cross between Stand by Me and a war movie is probably not as far off as it may seem, and there isn't a weak note among the cast. Hamill pops in from time to time with one specific type of presence (namely never taking off those sunglasses), which is fairly effective in authoritative menace. To say nothing of the ending, it provides its own distinct take on the meaning of having a wish versus actually realizing it in the wake of the road getting there that is pretty solid when you see it play out.* As a whole, it is a tense burner of a movie, having a worthy execution of suspense within the horror of inevitability within death in brotherhood that may very well become a curiosity to view in the coming years.
Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.
*What? People try to label movies clearly in the horror genre as musicals or "psychological thrillers", change my mind.
*I wouldn't call this a "both sides" thing, there are people who just brush aside school shootings, so you know where they can shove the "decency card".
*Spoiler (in lighter text): The book has McVries die (sitting at peace) before Stebbins, who then dies so Garraty wins. The book ends with Garraty wandering to catch a figure he sees in the distance, ignoring the victory. The movie ends with McVries being the winner after Garraty stops moving before the prize is awarded. You might debate whether anything after the victory is really real, but I'll go with the literal ending just for the hell of it: shooting the Major dead and McVries wandering into the distance...
