Review of the movie “The Long Walk”
I can’t remember the last time I went to see a matinee, alone. The stars have to explode into roman candles for it to happen. My wife took the kids to a museum in Austin and I stayed home trying to finish a work project. I remember hearing this movie was in theaters, so decided to check and see if it was still showing, while eating boiled eggs with saltines and radishes for lunch. There was only one theater in Temple still showing The Long Walk. They showed it once a day at 1:30pm. I checked to see if it was going to be showing this weekend, but it wasn’t. I realized its run was coming to an end.
“Fuck it,” I thought. “I’m gonna shower and go see the movie.” I bought my ticket online. There was only one seat that was already taken. I chose a seat on the other side of the theater.
Around 1990 I was gifted a copy of the Bachman books from a friend named Ami Furoshima. Most people know this by now, but Stephen King wrote 4 novels that were so… abrasive he didn’t want his name attached. New American Library eventually released the books together, in one long book, under the name Richard Bachman. The 4 novels are Rage, The Long Walk, The Running Man and Roadwork. Rage is a story about a student committing a mass school shooting at Placerville High School, The Long Walk is a reverse lotto tale, The Running Man was made into a movie and is about a futuristic reality TV show and Roadwork is the story of a man taking revenge on town officials after he gets tired of their red tape bureaucracy. (Roadwork would come true in 2004 in Grandby, CO). After multiple school shootings King refused to let Rage be reprinted. Now copies of this book are worth thousands. In fact, the little paper back book I had in high school is going for $350 on Abe Books.
The Long Walk would become my favorite book for quite some time. It was surpass my prior favorite book Watership Down and would remain my favorite until I read Of Mice and Men a few years later.
The Long Walk is the story about a kid named Ray Garraty who wins the lotto in his state. One boy from each state wins the opportunity to participate in The Long Walk. The Long Walk is a contest and the rules are simple. 50 young men start walking and the last one to keep walking wins. Throw in a post war dystopian time frame where martial law and death are broadcast on day time TV and we have our setting. The rules get more serious when you learn each contestant has to keep up a minimal speed of 3 miles per hour. There is no stopping once the walk starts and a death squadron of gunmen follow the walkers in military trucks. You get two warnings and the third and final warning is simply a gun shot to the head. The prize is a bajillion in cash and one wish.
I won’t go too far into the story, but will say that the movie and book are different. The motivation of the main character is much different and more importantly, the person who wins is different. The movie has been fleshed out by giving the main character a more sinister motivation, the contestants you get to know are paired down and sometimes 3 are funneled into 1, but the psychological trauma remains. The movie is rated R because the CGI head shots are graphic. As are the scenes when the boys have to shit on themselves while walking.
Having Francis Lawrence direct this movie was a great choice. He’s an expert at this look after years of doing shit like I Am Legend, The Hunger Games, etc.
I liked the movie enough, but really just wanted to see how in the hell they did it. This was not a book that screamed to be made into a movie. A lot had to be changed to make it work, but I’m happy to know that it only took 40 years for the vision to appear.
As I left the theater the other guy was ahead of me. It had been just the two of us watching the movie, at opposite ends of the theater, but both on the back row. He stopped to throw his popcorn container away and he looked back at me with a sort of, “I want to see who the other guy in the theater was.” look.
It was me. It was us. We were the last couple people to travel down this road and catch The Long Walk.
Together.
He looked like a weird dude.