On first trailer I had low expectations for The Long Walk. But then I looked a little deeper. Stephen King adaptations, when right, can be the best movies. Why did the Hunger Games and Strange Darling guys get involved? And David Jonsson has been a fascinating actor for a long time now. Take those weird disparate pieces, and poof…you’ve got yourself a delicious soup of movie fun that’s better than it has any right to be. As long as you walk faster than 3 miles per hour.
Yes, that’s part of the stakes of the lottery Ray Garraty (#47, Cooper Hoffman) finds himself in. In post war America, Ray and 49 other boys get a chance to walk as long as they can, and whomever lasts the longest, wins. Ray’s intentions are pure, and he makes quick friends with Hank Olson (#46, Ben Wang), Arthur Baker (#6, Tut Nyuot), and Peter McVries (#23, David Jonsson). But other contestants like Gary Barkovitch (#5, Charlie Plummer), Collie Parker (#48, Joshua Odjick), and Billy Stebbins (#38, Garrett Wareing) look locked in, and ready to take out anyone who gets in their way. Plus, The Major (Mark Hamill) overseeing this walk has a shocking amount of ammunition in case these boys can’t keep up the pace.
JT Mollner and Francis Lawrence’s involvement really elevate The Long Walk from some well cast B movie. At first, the movie’s just a fun buddy road trip with the boyz. But with a “last one survives” situation, you know someone’s gonna die quickly. When it happens, Lawrence and Mollner make sure the viewer viscerally knows what type of movie our leads are in, immediately changing the film into something else. Lesser talent would have turned the movie into a grizzly gore fest that slowly numbs the viewer. Instead, after the brutal first kill, what deaths Lawrence shows us vary as Mollner’s real story takes form. The Long Walk deep has a lot in common with The Grey; as the boys horrible reality sets in, the movie becomes a study of what we do deep down when there’s nothing left to hide. Do we run? Fight? Help? For a movie about death, The Long Walk sneakily becomes this treatise on how to live the right life. The movie can’t sustain it’s momentum to the finale, but if I had to walk hundreds of miles, I’d be wiped too; at least we got a good journey somewhere in there.
The Long Walk doubles as a Hollywood endurance test too. Cooper Hoffman passes his, showing he can carry a film at least as a co lead. There’s an aw shucks normal guy he brings to the table that works in his favor as he seems fallible, and well, human when we need him to be. But it’s David Jonsson that steals the show here. He’s been the best part of a sci-fi movie, a rom-com, and now a dystopic thriller. All 3 characters he played are different. Peter McVries proves he can play the hero: someone who is physically strong but also emotionally astute at the same time, a beacon of hope that the other boys cling to as the times get darker and darker. I don’t know where Jonsson’s career is going to go, but if it were up to me, he deserves as many shots as he wants to try stuff, and be the best part of the movies he makes.
I love a good long walk. But thanks to The Long Walk, I’m gonna have nightmares having to learn to walk and poop without getting shot as creepy people look on at my misfortune. Time to bring up some whole new stuff to the therapist, we can forget about mom for a while.