The Long Walk info:
Director: Francis Lawrence
Writer: JT Mollner and Stephen King
Starring: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, and Tut Nyuot
Hello and welcome to another week here at 1guysmindlessmoviereviews.com. I can’t believe that it’s almost Fall Break time, and the weather in my area is still in the mid-80s. I think it’s great, and I’m going to try to remember this for when it’s freezing cold in three weeks or so. This review won’t be that long, but before I get into “The Long Walk”, let me get the spoiler warning out of the way. If you haven’t watched it yet and don’t want to know what happens, please visit my reviews page here to see what else I have in store for you.
This is my last review before October hits, and this week I have another fitting movie. It’s not scary or creepy, but it is definitely disturbing and has more gore than I anticipated. Having read the book within the last two or three years, I was highly skeptical of what to expect. I mean, it’s literally a story about a bunch of young men just walking and talking. Granted, I am oversimplifying it, and there have been plenty of films made where conversation was the main or only plot-driving force. I’m talking to you, “12 Angry Men” and “The Hateful Eight”.
“The Long Walk” is a dystopian thriller that was originally written by Stephen King (who also happens to be my favorite author) back in 1977 under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. It’s directed by Francis Lawrence, who has a big track record, but is better known for The Hunger Games, which does have a similar feel to this. Both take place in an alternate dystopian universe where a majority of the main cast are young people fighting for their lives against each other.
The best casting choice in “The Long Walk” is by far having Mark Hamill play The Major. Apart from him, the only other hugely recognizable character is Judy Greer playing Raymond Garraty’s mom, Ginnie. Speaking of Raymond, as he and the other arrive at the starting line, The Major comes out and gives a very rough and non-motivational opening speech to start things out. Hamill puts his all into this role, and it’s great to see him pull it off.
For the next hour and a half, it’s literally just these men walking, talking, and doing lots of other things that you would think would be too hard to do while you walked. But the human body must expel its liquids and solids somehow, right? I could go into more detail about some of it, but a lot of it is really the same sorts of stuff, just with different characters, but with the same end results.
For the majority of the film, the focus is on Garraty (Hoffman), Peter McVries (Jonsson), Arthur Baker (Nyuot), and Hank Olson (Ben Wang). They form a group of four young men who become a sort of the main group. Garraty and McVries are the two main protagonists of the story, and most conversations revolve around them. Even in this bleak tale, there are still different opinions that drive some to be friendly and others to cause havoc. As Stebbins (Garrett Wareing), Gary Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer), Richard Harkness (Jordan Gonzalez), and Collie Parker (Joshua Odjick) round out the cast.
Overall, this is a captivating movie based on a harrowing short story. While most of the film relies on conversations, I believe there was plenty to make you want to look away from the screen as well. I’m always into a good scary movie, but some scenes were definitely difficult to watch. So with that, I struggle to give this any more than a 6 out of 10.
Nice short recap about “The Long Walk”, but there honestly isn’t too much more to say than this. So, that’s it for me this week. So that means it’s your turn. Have you seen it yet? If so, what are your thoughts? Did you have some similar feelings where you wanted to look away or did it keep you glued? Let me know in the comments below, and I will be back next week with another mindless movie review of some sort.
