14/09/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

As I’ve observed elsewhere, Stephen King is one of the most screen-adapted authors in living history and you’d think, wouldn’t you, that by now they’d have run out of titles to turn into movies? I mean, what stone has been left unturned? Well, there’s always The Long Walk, a story about a dystopian future where young men enter a lottery in order to be able to compete in a gruelling competition – where the winner will be handed a fortune while losers will be eliminated one by one, with a well-aimed bullet.

And before people start muttering about this being ripped off from The Hunger Games, it’s worth mentioning that King wrote the original novel when he was seventeen and that it was published way back in 1979, under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. (Bachman also wrote The Running Man, already filmed in 1987 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a new version looming on the cinematic horizon.)

The competitor we’re rooting for in the titular ordeal is Raymond Garrity (Cooper Hoffman) and the guy he pals up with is Peter McVries (David Jonsson) – but there are plenty of other participants and we learn something about most of them by the time we approach the three-hundred-mile marker. The event is presided over by The Major (an almost unrecognisable Mark Hamill). As the walk progresses, we witness some truly horrible executions and some almost as awful depictions of what happens when the participants are not even allowed the luxury of a toilet break…

The danger here, of course, is that such a stripped-back storyline might mean that the narrative becomes repetitive, so kudos must go to director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollner, who somehow manage to incorporate enough gear changes to keep me thoroughly entertained (if that’s the right word) throughout a one hour and forty-eight minute run time. It’s also chilling to note that, with the current political upheaval in the USA, the premise of this story feels queasily credible.

More than anything else, this is a film about male friendship, about honour and sacrifice. Hoffman, who made such a confident debut in Licorice Pizza is quietly compelling here as a young man nurturing a secret thirst for vengeance, while Jonsson makes the perfect foil for him: relaxed, compassionate and nurturing. As I say, we do learn about several of the other competitors, but this film belongs to its central duo, who keep us walking alongside them right up to the shattering conclusion.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney