The Long Walk was first published as part of The Bachman Books, a collection of four novellas from Stephen King’s alter-ego Richard Bachman. It also contained The Running Man (which Edgar Wright is re-adapting later this year), Roadwork, and Rage (which King has since pulled from publication on moral grounds — it’s about a school shooting). The tales in The Bachman Books all share a similar “standing up to the system” thematic thread, and its this tale that feels the most relevant here in 2025 where the middle class is disappearing and fascism is on the rise. It’s a binary world we live in, and the terms of the titular walk are a perfect distillation of the situation so many Americans find themselves in: make it big or don’t make it at all. You can either become the next big star or fall in line and hope that it’s enough to pay your rent before your body and/or mind expire. Win or die.
The titular walk is a contest designed by the powers that be to inspire American citizens during a bleak post-war era. Said war evidently didn’t go too well. The rules are simple: 50 young “volunteers” are selected via lottery to participate in the annual walk. Participants must maintain a speed of 3mph. If they dip below this parameter they are given a warning and ten seconds to get back on track. After ten seconds they receive a second warning, and then a third. After that, one of the soldiers riding alongside the parade will execute them on the spot. Shoe busted? Keep walking. Gotta take a leak? Do it while you move. Gotta go number two? You’d better strategize your warnings (they replenish after an hour of uninterrupted walking). The competition ends when all but one participant has been eliminated. The winner gets a stack of money and one wish.
The Long Walk is a compelling story on account of the characters and the central concept, but it’s the least inherently cinematic tale of The Bachman Books. Boiled down to the most basic bones of plot, it’s just a bunch of kids marching down the road.
The film focuses primarily on Raymond Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) who volunteered for the walk much to the dismay of his widow mother (Judy Greer). He quickly links up with Peter McVries (David Jonsson, who is poised to become a household name in no time at all) and the two form a fast and easy friendship despite their fatal circumstances. Much like soldiers in the trenches, the knowledge that the young men around them will soon be dead lends itself to wistful conversations about loftier topics. It’s easy to get philosophical when staring death right in the face. But since these are young boys, there’s a Lord of the Flies element that creeps into the proceedings. Cliques form, as do rivalries, and as individual competitors are gruesomely dispatched under the command of The Colonel (Mark Hammill, luxuriating in a gruff, evil performance), and the physical challenges of walking for days on end become apparent, the film morphs into a coming-of-age tale in fast forward. These men are forced to grow up in an impossible circumstance, and failure to do so means termination.
Director Francis Lawrence finds infinite ways to create cinema in the slow march, avoiding broad tableaus until the numbers start dwindling. It’s intimate until it’s not, at which point it becomes as bleak and lonely as an anonymous POW newsreel from The Great War. The violence toward the beginning of the film is visceral, gruesome, shocking. By the end, when our protagonists can barely be bothered to look at it, the death occurs in the rear distance, the fallen competitor’s humanity gone long before their feet failed them.
Long before their brains are splattered emotionlessly across the macadam.
King’s novella (ok, Bachman’s novella) is thoughtfully adapted by JT Mollner (Strange Darling), who manages to make the “angsty teen boy philosophy” both genuine and thoughtful. As a former angsty young man (and current angsty middle-aged man) I found myself able to relate to the thought processes of our protagonists and understand the hormonal camaraderie amongst them. As an adult who is jaded at our current society, I found the same philosophizing relevant and potent. Mollner’s script captures the revolutionary attitude of the source material, as well as the terror that comes with the acknowledgment of one’s mortality intertwined with the bondage of society’s rules (rules to which the powerful are not inclined to adhere). Yet as misanthropic as all of this sounds, the script finds a level of hope that (if memory serves) is absent from the novella. Yes, things are fucked. Yes, the final reel of this film is consistently shocking. But humans with their backs against the wall always seem to find a way to rise above their oppressors. While the rules of the Walk guarantee that only one man survives, it’s the collective sacrifice of all the competitors that has the potential to snowball into something greater than an individual’s wish.
The Long Walk, per the words of The Colonel, is meant to inspire the people of America to work hard and embrace their inherent grittiness. This brilliant, terrifying, brutal film suggests that working hard and falling in line are not one and the same.
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Written by JT Mollner, adapted from the novella by Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman
Starring Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Tut Nyuot, Ben Wang
Rated R, 108 minutes
