The Reel Review
Set in a dystopian, post 1970s America that has become an impoverished police state, a group of teenage boys compete in an annual endurance contest known as The Long Walk, which requires that they maintain a walking speed of three miles per hour or be executed. Only one walker can win, rewarded with whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Mark Hamill and Judy Greer star in this horror/thriller based on the 1979 Stephen King novel.
Francis Lawrence, director of all but the first of the Hunger Games films, uses a lot of dialogue, flashbacks and an oppressively dull color palate to capture the bleakness of this dystopian world. The leading cast, particularly Jonsson (Alien: Romulus, Industry), is top notch, aided by an equally impressive supporting cast that includes Charlie Plummer (National Anthem, Lean on Pete), Roman Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit), Ben Wang (Karate Kid: Legends, Chang Can Dunk), and Garrett Wareing (Ransom Canyon, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists) as the walker favored to win but also possessing a grueling secret.
There are many haunting images in this film, but those that most stand out are how desperate and anguished each walker looks just prior to his death and the PTSD that surviving walkers endure, watching their new friends die so quickly for reasons usually beyond their control. As a very dialogue heavy film, The Long Walk manages to weave themes of compassion and kindness into the horror, which makes the never-ending executions that much more painful to see. Fans of the novel will be frustrated by the different, more murky ending of the film, but even so, King’s very first novel has turned out to be one of his better film adaptations.
REEL FACTS
• Although he didn’t initially intend it as such, Stephen King’s “The Long Walk” (written in 1966 and published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman) is considered an allegorical critique of the senseless deaths and state-sanctioned violence that accompanied the Vietnam War.
• The Long Walk is one of four Stephen King stories adapted into movies in 2025, along with The Life of Chuck, The Monkey and The Running Man.
• Cooper Hoffman (son of late Oscar-winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman), David Jonsson and several other cast members portraying walkers avoided meeting Mark Hamill during filming, so as to maintain distance between their characters and the sadistic commander, The Major. When they all met after filming, Jonsson said Hamill was a lovely soul and nothing like the character he played.
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