Francis Lawrence’s Stephen King Adaptation

Dystopian cinema doesn’t come much bleaker than the latest Stephen King story to hit the screen, directed by that aficionado of the genre, Francis Lawrence. The Hunger Games filmmaker here does a superb job with material that could easily have proven tiresomely repetitive in lesser hands. While The Long Walk doesn’t entirely escape its narrative limitations, it features generous amounts of the sort of emotion and heart that have marked the best King adaptations. Of course, that doesn’t make it any less grueling.

The novel, written when King was just 19 years old, was the author’s first, although it wasn’t published until 1979 under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. The premise is that after a horrific war that took place decades earlier, the country is in the midst of a severe economic depression. In a bizarre bid to raise morale and counteract what he describes as an “epidemic of laziness”, a sadistic military figure known only as “The Major” (Mark Hamill) has created the titular contest, and the rules are simple. Fifty young men, one from each state and chosen by lottery, walk until they drop. Not from exhaustion, but from being shot in the head if they fail to maintain a pace of no less than three miles an hour. The last one standing is rewarded with a financial windfall and the granting of a single wish, any wish. It’s like They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? on steroids.

With the exception of a few brief flashbacks illuminating the backstory of one character, the film concentrates solely on the walk, which lasts for days and hundreds of miles. The young men naturally start out strongly, but exhaustion, physical infirmities and psychological stress eventually take their toll on them one by one. If they don’t keep up the pace, the menacing military figures escorting them on jeeps give them a series of warnings. And then they brutally dispatch them, which is euphemistically referred to as “getting a ticket.”

Among the brave, foolhardy participants are Ray (Cooper Hoffman, Licorice Pizza), whose motivation for participating goes far beyond financial need, and the affable Peter (David Jonsson, Alien: Romulus), with whom he forms an immediate bond. The others come across like a typical cross-section of characters in a war film, which isn’t surprising since The Long Walk essentially feels like one. They include wisecracking Hank (Ben Wang); optimistic Art (Tut Nyuot); solitary Stebbins (Garrett Wareing); rage-filled Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer, Lean on Pete); and underage Curly (Roman Griffin Davis, Jojo Rabbit).

As the walk proceeds through what looks like the flat Midwest, onscreen graphics keep us abreast as to how many miles are tallied and the number of days passing. Along the way, the increasingly exhausted young men are periodically observed by various bystanders who look like they stepped out of a Walker Evans Depression-era photograph, as well as the sunglass-wearing Major, who delivers a series of perverse, profanity-laden pep talks. At one point, the walkers briefly raise their morale with a spirited chant of “Fuck the Long Walk.”

What rescues the film from tedium are the characterizations, which are well-drawn even under the briefest circumstances. One of the contestants shockingly becomes the first victim a mere 20 minutes into the film, and it’s only then that the title flashes onscreen. The increasingly warm friendship between Ray, who never fails to support the others when they begin to falter, and Peter, who remains positive no matter how dire the situation gets, proves deeply affecting.

As does the loving relationships between Ray and his mother (Judy Greer, emotionally wrenching every moment she’s onscreen) and, seen in a flashback, Ray and his father (Josh Hamilton), who inspired Ray by defiantly standing up to the military regime.

Director Lawrence (who one hopes directs a romantic comedy very soon, if only for his mental health) maintains a firm grip on the proceedings, managing to make them visually interesting even if most of the action consists of the characters trudging through barren countrysides.

He’s also elicited excellent performances from Hoffman and Jonsson, who both display strong leading man potential, and the entire young ensemble. Not to mention Hamill, who never overplays his character’s villainy and makes his second strong impression this year in a Stephen King vehicle after The Life of Chuck.