The Long Walk review: A bleak and brutal survival thriller
Film adaptations of Stephen King novels come around often (there are four out this year alone), but The Long Walk is not your average King story – it’s the first one he ever wrote, when he was a teenager at university. It’s an absolutely brutal story, and this adaptation is the same.
The film is set in a dystopian version of America run by a totalitarian regime. A group of 50 young men are picked to participate in an annual walking competition where they must maintain a pace of three miles per hour or face execution. The last surviving walker is crowned the winner, awarded a cash prize and granted one wish.
The contest is told through the eyes of Raymond Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), who makes friends with Peter McVries (David Jonsson), Hank Olson (Ben Wang) and Arthur Baker (Tut Nyuot) at the starting line and they stick together as much as possible. There’s also their main competition, Stebbins (Garrett Wareing), the antagonistic Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer), and The Major (Mark Hamill), a scary authority figure who oversees the walk.
The Long Walk is directed by Francis Lawrence, the man behind the final three Hunger Games films (and the prequel). And this makes perfect sense because they’re pretty similar conceptually – young people being killed horrifically until one remains. With The Hunger Games film adaptations, a lot of violence was watered down or cut away from, but this one is brutal and unflinching, something which King was adamant about. The first death was so graphic that it shocked me. They aren’t all to that level, but it definitely hasn’t been sanitised to hit a younger age rating, with plenty of injury detail, blood and other bodily fluids.
You’ll come for the unique and horrifying concept and stay for the camaraderie between the four main boys. The friendship between Ray and Pete is the heart and soul of the film. It is superbly written, with us slowly learning more about them and their past as they clock up the miles. They become each other’s lifelines, supporting each other at their lowest ebb to make sure they keep putting one foot in front of the other. Hoffman and Jonsson are both fantastic as the leads, but Jonsson particularly proves why he should be a bigger star. I also enjoyed Wang, who made me chuckle, while Hamill is unnerving as the evil Major.
King wrote the story as a metaphor for the Vietnam War, but it is still relevant today, something which makes it feel even more bleak and depressing. The Long Walk sounds like it could be a bit boring, but thanks to the script and the fantastic ensemble (especially Hoffman and Jonsson), I was fully hooked.
In cinemas from Friday 12th September