Sore feat: The trodden ‘Long Walk’ slows to a crawl
Movies don’t get more pedestrian than “The Long Walk,” a dystopian televised game show in which contestants trudge some 330 miles on foot without rest or sleep. What’s most noteworthy is The most distinctive thing about it is that director Francis Lawrence seems to expect that same level of commitment from his increasingly exhausted audience. He makes you feel every grueling step of the journey on which good actors are called upon to utter inane dialogue about how awful it is to make pals with the same contestants you desperately want to see die so you can claim the title of sole survivor. You know, kinda like “The Hunger Games.”
It’s a franchise Lawrence knows only too well, having directed its two worst sequels, “Popinjay 1” and “Popinjay 2.” Oh, sorry, make that should be “Mockingjay.” Whatever. He brings the same mix of gibberish and drudgery to this similar iteration that he brought to those. Is it a coincidence that all three make precious little sense?
How bad is it? Well, it’s about what you’d expect from a script based on a novel written by a 16-year-old nobody from Maine using the pseudonym Richard Bachman, aka Stephen King. There’s a reason that it’s taken more than 50 years for this particular King curiosity to be made into a motion picture. In fact, there are many. Most notably, it’s lack of cinematic juice. Who wants to watch a few dozen nondescript actors walking and talking nonstop for literally days on end?
Francis and his director of photography, Jo Willems, do little to break up the monotony beyond the occasional scene requiring the thinning of the herd by means of a bullet through the skull. Much of it is filmed (in Canada) along desolate roads lined with a handful of zombified spectators. And where are the folks watching at home? We’re told it’s one of the year’s biggest TV events, but we never see a single person glued to their set. There’s also no special lighting for night shots, and where are all the cameras? The only one we can spot is mounted on the military vehicle carrying the 19th annual tournament’s grand marshal, a crusty old military type known only as The Major. Ironically, The Major is played by Mark Hamill in a minor role. And believe me, the Force has foresaken him here.
The Major is also the dude who fires the starting gun after explaining to us and the 50 contestants (one from each state) that any violation of the rules will result in immediate death. Chief among the regulations is the stipulation that you must maintain a pace of 3 mph, with no exceptions for illness, fatigue, or the call of nature. There’s also no limit on distance. It all depends on how long it takes one guy (no women, by the way) to triumph over his weaker competirors to claim the top prizes of a boatload of cash and an anything-goes wish of your choice.
About a dozen of the participants have speaking roles, led by Cooper Hoffman (son of Phillip and star of “Licorice Pizza”) as Raymond Garraty, a naive country boy sporting the worst physique in the group. I wouldn’t bet on him walking 10 miles, let alone 300. But that’s why they’re called fantasies. Magic happens. Anywho, Ray is competing in the name of his martyred father (Josh Hamilton) and widowed mother (Judy Greer), who drops her son off at the starting line as if it’s his first day at school instead of a death march.
We also see his parents briefly in a couple of flashbacks, but we gain no insight as to why Ray is so devoted to them. Heck, we learn practically nothing about Ray, even though he’s the leading man. He oozes benevolence, just like you’d expect from a literary character of his unspectacular ilk. But that’s about it.
Lawrence and writer JT Mollner (of last year’s marvelous “Strange Darling”) pretty much presents him as a great white hope, propped up by the worst of all stereotypes, the “magical Negro,” played by BAFTA newcomer of the year, David Jonsson. His Peter McVries is the eternal optimist, a sunbeam amid the poop, piss and blood being graphically excreted along the road.
Most of the contestants, all chosen by lottery after entering their names voluntarily, are motivated by the prospect of escaping the poverty that’s wracked the U.S. in the wake of some unexplained civil war. And Pete is no different. He needs the prize money badly, but apparently not badly enough to ever betray Ray, a guy he just met, but with whom he’s shared deep conversations about the meaning of life and the permanence of death. By the third act, he’s even willing to die so the white guy can win.
The bigger problem for the movie is that the script demonstrates to the unwritten principle that the bigger the star’s salary, the longer they stick around, eliminating any sense of surprise about who will be left standing. In place of suspense, we get two actors deserving of far better material than nearly two hours of cliched platitudes.
At least they display a modicum of depth compared to the supporting players, all of whom are types: Charlie Plummer as the troublemaking loner, Gary Barkovich; Joshua Odjick as the cynical native American, Collie Parker; and Garrett Wareing as the mysterious Stebbins, whose secret isn’t all that shocking however nonsensical.
Ultimately, what do we gain? Not much. Just a lot of gobbledygook about friendship, sacrifice and understanding. I suppose you could draw a parallel with today’s scary political climate. But since the story seems to be set in the 1960s, when King wrote the book, I would guess it to be more of a metaphor for the Vietnam War, where some 50,000 young men met similarly brutal ends as the boys in this film.
OK, point made. But in service to what? Got me. Perhaps I was expecting something more than mass death as entertainment. But that’s essentially what we get as “The Long Walk” proves woefully out of step up.
Movie review
The Long Walk
Rated: R for pervasive language, grisly images, sexual references, strong bloody images, suicide
Cast: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonnson, Mark Hamill, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang and Garrett Wareing,
Director: Francis Lawrence
Writers: JT Mullner
Runtime: 108 minutes
Where: In theaters now
Grade: C-
