SPOILER-FREE PLOT SUMMARY
After the United States is driven into dystopia after a war, the government holds an annual reality TV competition where young men can enter a lottery. If selected, they walk continuously as a group until there’s only one left standing, with the winner receiving a life-changing cash prize. The Major (played by Mark Hamill) leads the caravan on a road with no finish line, keeping an eye on all the participants, including “The Four Musketeers” of Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), Pete McVries (David Jonsson), Art Baker (Tut Nyuot) and Hank Olson (Ben Wang). If anyone stops walking, they receive a warning. If they get three warnings, they “get their ticket” (i.e. catch a bullet in their head). Since everyone is desperate to win the cash, when Ray claims he’s not in it for the money, the other walkers call B.S. and try to get him to confess his real reason for joining this spectacle. It’s only after he develops a friendship with Pete that the truth comes out.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
There’s zero reason why this should work. There are very few flashbacks and very few cutaways. This is literally an hour and a half of people walking.
But, holy smokes, what a movie!
Director Francis Lawrence does a masterful job creating unrelenting tension which forces the audience to simultaneously consider how they’d handle each situation while still hanging on every word of dialogue. Not an easy feat to orchestrate a group of people following multiple mental tracks with high emotional value.
Not to be undersold, the relationships the characters form are brought to life by Hoffman, Jonsson, Wang, Nyuot and Charlie Plummer, among others, creating bonds with the audience, one way or another. Each viewer is cycling through considerations of empathy, sympathy or antipathy based on the strength of their performances. Any one of them could be on someone’s end-of-year ballot for Best Supporting Actor and nobody would question it.
All too often, we see movies with predictable outcomes. Even if you’re completely invested in the story and forget you’re watching something, the back of your mind knows who prevails in the end based solely on the protagonist and antagonist roles. THE LONG WALK features an extremely satisfying story arc that’ll leave you talking long after you leave the theater.
This is on the Mt. Rushmore of best films of 2025 (through eight and a half months, anyway). THE LONG WALK is a hyper-intense illustration of personality and desperation that some audience members will not be ready for. The brutality and graphic-ness — especially early — is not for everyone but it serves a purpose. Think THE HUNGER GAMES but with the viciousness shown in great detail (THE HUNGER GAMES had a PG-13 rating, after all).
What Lawrence has done here is take a basic premise (first tackled by Stephen King) and turned it into a movie that has you questioning your own motivations, strategies and commitment. That’s quite an accomplishment for a movie about people walking. If you think you can handle graphic brutality, don’t miss it.
JKG SCORE: 8.5
AN UNTITLED EXTRA: Our podcast review (with spoilers!) drops Wednesday, September 10 on our YouTube channel, Spotify, Apple an wherever you get your podcasts!
Untitled Film Project 