Film: The Long Walk
Cast: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Jordan Gonzalez
Director: Francis Lawrence
Rating: 3 stars
Runtime: 108 min.
Francis Lawrence, the `Hunger Games` helmer adapts one of Stephen King’s gruesome novels for the screen and it’s raw, hard-hitting and emotionally hurting.
Stephen King wrote the book under the pen name Richard Bachman in 1979, when he was just nineteen, during the period of the Vietnam war. The subject here is about a totalitarian regime putting on a deadly competition for young adults to excite the public. Basically, the kids are required to walk without rest until they collapse or are killed by soldiers for flouting the rules, and the last/only survivor is crowned the winner. It feels like yet another version of The Hunger Games and probably explains why Lawrence succeeded in completing the project when others like George A. Romero and Frank Darabont failed.
Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), his friend Peter McVries (David Jonsson), Gary Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer), a vulnerable Olson (Ben Wang), Art (Tut Nyuot), underage Curly (Roman Griffin Davis) and Stebbins (Garrett Wareing) are some of the participants who last longer than the others. The walk lasts several days and covers hundreds of miles. The young men bond, banter, share stories, chat, get aggressive and competitive while on the road. It’s all about existing for the moment, with the slowly-dwindling group trudging together down an emptied-out road that looks utterly desolate with bodies strewn across en route.
The competition (if you can call it that) takes place in mid ’60s alternate dystopian America, battered by civil unrest and under military rule. Major (Mark Hamill) is the man in control of things, and it`s his idea to get naive young draftees, 50 of them, to voluntarily enrol in an endurance death game, for some cash and a wish. Of course, the situation in the country makes them desperate enough. But they have no idea as to what they are about to experience until the first bullet, shot at point-blank range, pierces through the skull of a defeated contestant.
This is indeed a horrific buddy story adaptation and the treatment is suitably chilling bleak and despondent. The no-frills dystopian scenario(unlike that of the Hunger Games) is rather grim and fatalistic. There’s plenty of suffering and bloodshed. When participants are shot at point-blank range we get to see it in full blood-spurting detail.
There’s some emotional baggage to be dealt with too. Ray’s loving relationship with his mother (Judy Greer), and his father (Josh Hamilton)… who inspires him to stand up to the military regime. Also, Ray’s buddy chemistry with Peter doesn’t last the course…because the rules don’t permit it. Much of the action centres around participants getting exhausted and shot as a consequence or survivors trudging through, at times beautiful but largely barren wastelands. The interest is piqued by the manner in which the whole nihilistic drama is presented. Lawrence makes it all look so grim and desperate. All the youngsters in this movie pull off an unnerving ensemble act. Judy Greer is also quite affecting throughout her brief forays onto the screen.
This movie is certainly not for the faint-hearted. It’s an endurance watch at best.
