There's some truly deep cinematic magic in the way Francis Lawrence can make things ordinarily extraordinary. His first film, Constantine, did this quite literally, but his latest, another adaptation of a great literary work, returns to this topic. This time he does it from a completely different angle that is anything but magical. In the alternate contemporary world of Stephen King, a group of teenage boys begins a challenge where they need to walk continuously, getting shot by their military escort if they slow down, until only one remains.
This stripped-down version of so many Battle Royale tales is here much more visceral. King's novel is a minimalist masterpiece of absolute doom and this sense of being stuck in a hell of one's own choosing. The film fatefully adapts this notion into a film that keeps going, even though its cast struggles to fill the worn, bloody shows of the much more impactful individuals from the book. Lawrence solves the problem of limited time and exposure by focusing on the constant movement of both characters and the plot.
With that, The Long Walk is a film that probably broke the record of lines being said by actors in motion and with it, made a disturbing work of art about grim perseverance. That perseverance doesn’t let up even when it fails to make anything or anyone anything but dead. But, that's ultimately also the story of life itself, isn't it?
