Does anyone out there remember They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? That 1969 film was based on a 1935 novel by Horace McCoy, inspired by the bizarre Depression-era craze of dance marathons. Slick entrepreneurs would hire out a ballroom or auditorium and cash customers would root for the couples who tried to stay upright on the dance floor for hours and days on end.
I don’t know if that real-life fad sparked an idea in Stephen King’s head or not, but it’s the only movie I can think of that offers a point of comparison to The Long Walk, which was adapted from his early novel. (It was published under his pen name, Richard Bachman.) The new film, directed by Francis Lawrence and written by JT Mollner, takes place in that dreaded realm called the near-future. Young men from all fifty states compete and the last one standing at the finish line gets the prize of his dreams. They walk in a pack on an endless two-lane road, with armed guards ready to shoot them if they break with the group or stop for any reason.
Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson hold the lead for the better part of this walkathon, treading at 3 miles an hour giving the movie a steady pace, as it never sits still. There are enough hair-trigger incidents and flashbacks to enliven the narrative, and the ease with which the two leading actors share their feelings and experiences keep it from feeling like they (or we) are stuck in a rut.
Judy Greer makes the most of her sparse screen time as Hoffman’s mom and Mark Hamill is suitably gruff as the Major who supervises the enterprise. But it’s Hoffman (son of the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Jonsson who carry the weight of the film.
I’m happy to say that The Long Walk doesn’t set itself up as a Morality Tale. The allegory is easy enough to swallow without the film trumpeting its own importance. The hand of the filmmakers—including co-editor Mark Yoshikawa, who was kind enough to come to my class as USC—is never obvious or distracting. The Long Walk is a satisfying piece of entertainment that feels curiously relevant.
