THE LONG WALK (2025)

Genre: Thriller
Director: Francis Lawrence
Cast: Mark Hamill, Judy Greer, Ben Wang, Garrett Wareing, Charlie Plummer, David Jonsson, Cooper Hoffman
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Rating: M18 (Coarse Language and Violence)
Released By: Encore Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 11 September 2025

Synopsis: In a dystopian United States ruled by a totalitarian regime, a group of young men enter an annual walking contest where they must walk at three miles per hour non-stop or be executed until only one of them is left alive.

Movie Review:

Francis Lawrence is no stranger to dystopian cinema, but those expecting ‘The Long Walk’ to be as spectacular as ‘The Hunger Games’ will probably come off sorely disappointed.

To be sure, that is of no fault of Lawrence, who does his best to fashion a feature-length adaptation from Stephen King’s very first book. For those keen to know, King wrote it when he was just 19 years old, although it wasn’t published until years later under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. And over the decades, there has been many attempts to bring it to screen – as well as good reason why George A. Romero, Frank Darabont, and André Øvredal have failed.

The premise is simple – and by and large, Lawrence and his screenwriter JT Mollner stay faithful to it. A horrific war had taken place close to 20 years ago, and the country had since been in a period of severe economic depression. In order to raise morale and counteract what is described as an “epidemic of laziness”, an annual ritual has been created. The rules are simple: gather 50 young men, one from each state and chosen by lottery, and have them walk at no less than three miles per hour, until only one of them stands. That person left stands to gain a financial windfall or the granting of a single wish.

The catch? Those who do not make it are given three warnings, before they are shot in the head. Except for a couple of flashbacks, the entire length of the movie is concentrated on the titular walk, which lasts for days and hundreds of miles. There are incidents along the way all right, and Lawrence’s achievement is capturing the humanity of the story with a character-driven approach.

The lead – and whom you probably can guess will make it almost to the very end – is Ray (Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, whom Lawrence had directed in several instalments of ‘The Hunger Games’). Only towards the later half of the movie are we told of Ray’s agenda, and his personal motivation for trying to make it to the finish line, which, without giving anything away for those not familiar with the source material, is not because of the riches.

Ray’s companions comprise of the oddly cheerful Pete (David Jonsson), the wisecracking Hank (Ben Wang), the optimist Art (Tut Nyuot), and the scary wild card Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer). Not surprisingly, the movie’s moral centre is the warm friendship between Ray and Pete, with the duo encouraging, supporting and uplifting each other along the way. Ultimately, how much you enjoy the movie rests on how much you embrace their friendship, because probably close to half the time is spent in conversations about life and death as well as finding hope, meaning and purpose in their otherwise miserable existence.

Some might wonder about the violence within – suffice to say that the initial shots to the head are startling in their savagery, but it gets increasingly numb and mundane thereafter. Don’t get us wrong: we are not advocating for Lawrence to have taken a sensationalistic approach to the material, but it is the nature of the material that Lawrence is beholden to, and which undeniably can get dreary over the course of the movie.

With the emphasis on the young men chosen for the walk, there is also arguably little emphasis on The Major (a nearly unrecognisable Mark Hamill), who oversees the walk from his jeep with his aviator sunglasses, delivering a series of profanity-laden pep talks. There is a nice mid-film sequence where the participants enter into a spirited chant of ‘Fuck The Long Walk’, but otherwise like we said, it does get repetitive.

We will add that the finale does rewrite the book’s ending, but we suspect not even that can defy the weariness of the entire exercise. Like we said, the fault isn’t Lawrence, who to his credit, tries valiantly to bring the material to the big screen; rather, there is good reason why others have tried and given up. What is the purpose of the walk? Is there a larger message about the politics of today? Why is the Midwest they trudge along so static? These are questions that make ‘The Long Walk’ unsatisfying despite Lawrence’s cinematic efforts, and what we think will leave you exhausted than energised at the end of it.

Movie Rating:

(As valiant as this effort may be to bring Stephen King's book to the screen, it remains an enervating watch that saps rather than zaps life into yet another version of dystopian America)

Review by Gabriel Chong