Two hours of teenagers getting blisters. It is the best thing I have seen all year.
Lionsgate’s adaptation of a story Stephen King wrote decades ago under a different name. The film takes place in an alternate version of the United States where the government has turned into a total military police state. To keep the poor people from complaining about the terrible economy, the military hosts a massive, televised event every year where fifty young men from across the country are forced to walk until they drop dead.
Directed by Francis Lawrence, who previously handled those other movies about teenagers fighting each other in a futuristic arena, this story strips away the glamorous costumes for a much grittier look. The premise is as simple as it gets. If these kids stop walking or slow down below three miles per hour, they get three warnings before the soldiers shoot them on the spot. The last teenager left standing gets a giant pile of cash and a wish granted by the dictator in charge. It is a bleak look at human endurance that aims to test the patience of theater audiences just as much as it tests the feet of its young characters.
Review by Ben Dover
I sat on my couch to watch this because my knees hurt just looking at the poster. Kids these days complain if they have to walk from the house to the mailbox, so watching fifty of them get forced into a marathon at gunpoint felt like a bizarre senior citizen fantasy at first. The movie is based on a book Stephen King wrote when he was using a fake name, probably because even he knew that a story about guys just walking down a dirt road for two hours sounds like a punishment. Director Francis Lawrence tries to turn a basic hike into a psychological nightmare, and for the most part, he actually pulls it off, even if it made me want to yell at the screen for these kids to pull up their pants and move faster.
The main kid is played by Cooper Hoffman, who spends the entire movie looking like he just realized he left the oven on at home. His character volunteers for this literal death march to help his mother, which is the only relatable thing any teenager does in this whole script. He makes friends with another walker played by David Jonsson, and they spend miles whining about their feelings, their ex-girlfriends, and how much their blisters hurt. I know today’s youth loves to overshare on the internet, but doing it while a guy with a rifle is tracking your speed seems like bad time management.
My biggest gripe with this whole setup is how dumb these kids are. They know the rules. If you slow down below three miles per hour, the soldiers give you a warning, and after three strikes, you get a bullet in the head. Yet, within the first twenty minutes, some dummy gets a leg cramp and immediately takes a dirt nap. You would think these video game obsessed teenagers would have better stamina from jumping around in their virtual realities, but apparently not. They drop like flies because they cannot handle a brisk walk through New England.
What I did love was Mark Hamill playing the villainous dictator known as the Major. Luke Skywalker himself shows up looking like a mean old military boss, shouting condescending nonsense through a microphone to inspire patriotism. He is completely unhinged and acts like a strict principal at a high school detention from hell. Every time he came on screen, the movie got ten times better, mostly because he looked just as annoyed with these teenagers as I was.
Even though I liked the tension and the gritty, no nonsense atmosphere, I hated how the movie dragged in the middle. It is literally just hours of watching people sweat and hobble down a paved road. There are times when the scenery does not change for twenty minutes, and you start to wonder if the camera operator fell asleep on the dolly tracker. It is a good thriller, but you might need a cup of strong coffee to get through the slow patches where nothing happens except teenage existential dread.
Who Stars
- Cooper Hoffman plays Raymond Garraty, the boy from Maine who enters the walk to get revenge against the government and save his family from poverty. He is the emotional anchor of the movie, meaning he does the most crying.
- David Jonsson plays Pete McVries, the smooth talking walker who becomes Ray’s best buddy and helps him stay motivated when his feet start giving out.
- Mark Hamill stars as the Major, the terrifying military leader who runs the event with an iron fist and treats the deaths of children like a fun afternoon sport.
- Charlie Plummer plays Gary Barkovitch, a total jerk of a contestant who spends his time taunting the other boys and waiting for them to die.
- Judy Greer plays Ray’s mother, who gets a few minutes at the beginning to look utterly devastated and beg her son not to go.
Special Effects
There are no giant exploding spaceships or purple alien monsters here. The special effects are mostly just blood, dirt, and disgusting close-ups of ruined feet. When the soldiers shoot a boy for slowing down, the violence is sudden, loud, and messy. The makeup team deserves an award or a psychological evaluation for how realistic those infected blisters and bloody shoes looked. It made my own corns hurt just watching it.
Music
The score was put together by Jeremiah Fraites, a guy from that band The Lumineers. Instead of loud, annoying pop music that kids listen to today, the music is mostly quiet, acoustic, and depressing. It fits the mood perfectly because it sounds like a funeral march played on a rusty guitar, though a few times it got so quiet I thought my soundbar had kicked into power saving mode.
Rating
3.5 out of 5 Stars – I have seen turtles move faster than these kids, but at least the turtles do not whine about their ex-girlfriends.
Complete Synopsis and Plot Breakdown
The story kicks off in an alternate timeline where a massive civil war ruined the United States and left the country under a totalitarian military dictatorship. To distract the starving public from the awful economy, the government runs a sick reality show called the Long Walk. Fifty boys are chosen by a lottery system, given basic rations, and told to start walking from the Canada border. The rules are brutal. Maintain a speed of three miles per hour or get shot after three warnings. The last one alive wins a massive fortune and a wish. Ray Garraty from Maine says goodbye to his sobbing mother and joins the line.
As soon as the Major fires his pistol, the boys start walking down the highway. At first, they joke around and think it is a game, but reality hits fast when a kid named Curly gets a muscle cramp, drops below the speed limit, and gets executed right in front of them. Ray forms an alliance with a few guys, including a nice guy named Pete McVries and a loudmouth named Hank Olson. Over the next few days, the walk turns into a war of attrition. Boys go crazy from sleep deprivation, some try to run away into the woods and get gunned down, and others simply collapse from exhaustion.
By the fifth day, the walk has covered over three hundred miles in the pouring rain. Hank Olson loses his mind from delirium, tries to assault the guards, and gets shot to death. The group of fifty has dwindled down to just a handful of broken, bleeding teenagers entering a major city where crowds of creepy citizens are cheering them on like they are at a football game. Barkovitch, the annoying bully of the group, finally breaks down and dies, leaving only Ray and Pete as the final two contestants.
In the final stretch, Pete’s body completely gives out, and he sits down on the pavement. Ray tries to drag his friend to his feet, but Ray is so exhausted that he stops moving too. The Major arrives in person to finish the game. In a shocking twist, the Major executes Ray instead because Ray stopped first, declaring Pete the official winner. When the Major asks Pete what his grand prize wish is, Pete demands a soldier’s rifle, shoots the Major dead on the spot, and walks away down the empty, silent street into the fog.
Famous Quotes
- “Walk or die.”
- “The true sickness of the nation isn’t poverty, but laziness.”
- “We are all going to die out here, Garraty. Some of us just have the decency to do it quicker.”
- “Keep your pace up, boy. That rifle doesn’t care about your blisters.”
- “I just want to go home to my mother.”
Notes and Interesting Facts
- The movie is based on the first novel Stephen King ever completed, though it was not published until years later under his Richard Bachman pseudonym.
- Director Francis Lawrence used his experience directing the Hunger Games movies to help capture the grim atmosphere of kids fighting for survival in a government game.
- The film was shot on location to give the long, endless highways an authentic, depressing New England look.
- Unlike the book which featured one hundred boys, the movie adaptation scaled the number of walkers down to fifty to focus more on individual character development.
- Mark Hamill took on the role of the Major after years of doing voice acting, bringing a genuinely creepy, commanding presence back to live action cinema.
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