The Long Walk ~ Review

By: [email protected] on
I cried through the majority of my screening of The Long Walk. It is a deeply affecting and harrowing death march about the political and economic systems that are working to grind us all to death. It’s about camaraderie and friendship in the harshest of circumstances, and the moments that make life beautiful. As I write this, there have been roughly 357 mass shootings in 2025, and that number will not go down. Life has a constant drumbeat of violence behind it now, it’s inescapable background noise, and we just keep walking.
 
Based on Stephen King’s 1979 novel, The Long Walk is set in a dystopian retro-future. A couple of decades after a civil war has destroyed the United States economy, the nation (or a part of it, anyway) is now under the military dictatorship of The Major (Mark Hamill) – a sadist who rules under the guise of tough love. To boost the country's morale, the Major has implemented The Long Walk – an annual contest in which a group of 50 teenage boys will walk as far as they can go at a pace of 3 miles per hour. If the boys slow down for any reason, they receive a warning, which they can walk off over the course of the next hour. Receive three warnings, without catching up to speed, and the kids are summarily shot. The last boy standing receives a cash prize and one wish. We are not told how many of these Long Walks have occurred, but we can infer that it has been happening for quite some time.
 
Each of the 50 boys has their own reasons to join the Long Walk. However, even though the kids have a “choice” to partake in the contest, if you are being oppressed economically and politically...there really isn’t a choice, now is there. Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) is our protagonist, and we follow him and the relationships he forms with a few of the other boys, such as McVries (David Jonsson), Stebbins (Garrett Wareing), and Parker (Joshua Odjick), as they make their grim death march.
 
Stephen King’s novel has an unrelentingly grim momentum to it. While the book breaks away from the contest to dive into Ray’s memories and dreams, for the most part, you are with the characters as they walk. Reading the book is an exhausting experience, as not only is it emotionally harrowing, but the text makes you feel like you are walking at three miles per hour right alongside the characters. It’s a hell of a book because of that momentum. So, it’s wild to me that not only do director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollner match that momentum, but they make it even more intense. We are with these kids as they walk, their footfalls echoing on the soundscape, punctuated by horrific violence.
 
The novel also sketches these boys so incredibly well that you really get to know them. However, with the limited time of a film, the concern is that the individual nature of the characters won’t shine through as well. However, thanks to the script and stellar performances, we get to know these characters just as well as in the book.
 
Cooper Hoffman leads the ensemble, and there’s an ease to his performance that draws you in. The film has a large ensemble, and everyone does great work, but there are a few actors I want to highlight. Garrett Wareing brings a cynical melancholy to Stebbins, whose reasons for joining The Long Walk are kept as a mystery throughout. Tut Nyuot’s is hopeful and funny as Baker, while Charlie Plummer is equal parts terrifying and heartbreaking as the bully Barkovitch. Joshua Odjick gives an incredible performance as Parker. All of these performances are star-making turns, and I hope The Long Walk gives all of them a massive springboard. I should also mention Judy Greer who gives a devastating performance as Garrty's mother.
 
The beating heart of The Long Walk, however, is David Jonsson. Jonsson has been doing stellar work in everything he’s been in from last year’s Alien: Romulus to HBO’s Industry. What he does here is a virtuoso performance that is never showy, but he’s funny, sad, and hopeful sometimes all at the same time.
 
We tend to punish children in our fiction for the sins of the world. Whether it’s pitting kids against each other as in Lord of the Flies, Battle Royale, or The Hunger Games. Or just seeing children punished for the decaying society they were unlucky enough to be born into (Akira or The Long Walk). We have failed in a fundamental and foundational way, and the fictional kids are paying for it. Judging by the violence committed in our real world almost daily, I think it might be true here as well.
 
Four out of Four Stars