The Media Tourist

Latest Stephen King movie adaptation is a bleak, unpleasant slog

The Long Walk
Starring Cooper Hoffman, David Johnson, Charlie Plummer & Roman Griffin Davis
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Rated R

In theaters Friday, Sept. 12

A bleak dystopian parable set in a too-close-for-comfort future, The Long Walk depicts America as a militaristic totalitarian police state and an entire generation so traumatized by war and economic collapse that a death march seems like a good idea.

Based on an early novel by Stephen King (the first he ever wrote, back in the 1960s when he was a freshman at the University of Maine), it’s about a grueling annual walking contest in which young men are “chosen” from every state to compete on a course of more than 300 miles. There’s no stopping for any reason, and everyone receives penalty “warnings” for rule-breaking infractions—like pausing to pee or poop, walking too slow, falling behind, collapsing, or stepping off the pavement. Get three warnings, and you’re eliminated. That’s permanently eliminated—blam, you’re shot. The walk is over when there’s only one walker left alive—the ostensible winner.

The thought of winning—surviving—is the carrot on the stick, the thing that keeps the men trudging ahead: The lone survivor will receive whatever their heart desires, “more riches than you could possibly imagine,” says the Major (Mark Hamill) who runs the show. The walkers fantasize about what they’d do with such limitless wealth.

And it’s all televised.

King is widely recognized as a maestro of the macabre for the many adaptations of his work that became horror touchstones, like Carrie, It, The Shining, Children of the Corn, Salem’s Lot, Creepshow and Cujo. But others of his writings—like the ones that became The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me—were slim on the supernatural and rooted instead in human drama.

It isn’t a horror movie, per se, even though it depicts some truly horrific human drama, like young men getting brain-spattering kill shots to the head. And the walk itself is a monstrous event, ghoulish entertainment for looky-loos desperate for any kind of diversion. But it won’t ever bask in the same glow as The Shawshank Redemption or Stand By Me.  

You might recognize some of the walkers. Cooper Hoffman, the son of the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, made an impressive debut in Licorice Pizza back in 2021. David Johnson had a recurring role in HBO’s Industry. Roman Griffin Davis was the kid, Jojo, in Jojo Rabbit.

There are messages swirling around, about brotherhood and friendship, family, forced allegiance, how a society can easily slide into madness, our appetite for “extreme” entertainment. Director Francis Lawrence certainly knows dystopia; he helmed four flicks of the Hunger Games franchise, with a fifth in the works for next year.

But lofty messages can’t rise above the mire of this relentlessly dreary downer. It’s basically a movie about guys walking…and walking…and walking. And talking… talking… talking. Dying, dying, dying. There are exploding heads, pools of blood and other awfulness; a bloated, maggot-filled animal carcass on the roadside, a crucified crow strung up on a fence, a walker crushed to gristle underneath the treads of an armored car. It’s an ugly world; we get it. But the messaging is mired in the downer murk of one of the most visually unpleasant movie experiences of the year.

The Long Walk wants to lead viewers into a socially relevant cautionary tale. Too bad it takes such a nasty, depressing road-trip slog to get there.

—Neil Pond

Paul Rudd & Tim Robinson strike bro-crush gold in scathingly funny male-bonding comedy

Friendship
Starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd
Directed by Andrew DeYoung
Rated R

In theaters Thurs., May 15

Socially stunted Craig (Tim Robinson) develops a bodacious bro-crush on his new neighbor, the suave local TV weatherman Austin (Paul Rudd), in this new gem of cringe comedy about what can go hilariously off-track in male relationships.

It’s an impressive first film for director Andrew DeYoung, but Friendship really finds its wince-y, perfect-pitch groove in Tim Robinson, who spent four seasons as a writer and performer with Saturday Night Live before launching his own successful Netflix series; I Think You Should Leave was about a guy who drives other people away—which is exactly what happens here. Robinson’s Craig is like an overgrown, awkward kid who never fully matured, and much of the film hinges on his hapless, sometimes explosive ignorance in all kinds of situations at home, at work and anywhere else he tries—and fails spectacularly—to fit in.

Rudd, also one of the film’s executive producers, provides the perfect counterpart as a guy who seemingly has it all (a glamorous job, a rock band, a beautiful wife and cool hobbies), but also some insecurities of his own. Sometimes, it feels like Rudd is channeling bits of his smooth ladies-man reporter vibes from Anchorman, while Robinson’s substantial roots in SNL’s subversive sketch humor creep and crawl through everything, orchestrated to an original soundtrack (by Keegan DeWitt) that adds to the air of anything-might-happen unhinged-ness.

Kate Mara plays Craig’s wife, Jack Dylan Glazier (from two It horror flicks, and Shazam!) is their son. I loved the son’s girlfriend (Anora’s Ivy Wolk), whose only spoken lines are “Hi” and “Thank you for the potato.”) And also the young ponytailed phone salesman (Billy Byrk) who doubles as a drug dealer on lunch breaks of Rollos and Red Bull.

How knockout funny is it all? Well, not every movie can wring laughs from neighborhood speed cushions, a psychedelic toad, mushrooms, aqueduct spelunking, soiled clothing and the very mention of a Marvel movie. But this caustic buddy-buddy cocktail truly swings in the awkward yin-yang between Robinson and Rudd, who demonstrate how riotously askew a male friendship can go—especially if you’re clueless, like Craig, to every social cue.  

—Neil Pond