\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn.craft.cloud\/26ed9c78-feb7-4ee6-8ddf-262fd7bafb2d\/assets\/tco\/images\/The-Long-Walk.jpg\")
<\/p>\n [ad_1]
\n<\/p>\n
TV<\/span> and cinema is obsessed with selling us the notion that people are, in the main, absolutely fine with watching people dying in the name of live entertainment. The sordid ritual of attending public hangings or floggings died out when other, more wholesome forms of family entertainment entered the public purview. And yet storytellers are now fixated with dreaming up new must-win contests in which those that don\u2019t manage to defeat their determined opponents are subject to some sort of humiliating (and, in the case of Francis Lawrence\u2019s <\/span>The Long Walk<\/span><\/i>, leerily graphic) demise.<\/span><\/p>\n From the dystopian human-hunting runaround that was \u200b\u2018<\/span>The Most Dangerous Game\u2019, through to genuinely harrowing responses to economic depressions such as \u200b\u2018<\/span>They Shoot Horses Don\u2019t They?\u2019 and acerbic genre films such as <\/span>Battle Royale<\/span><\/i>, we now seem to have an enforced deathsport of the week mandate for visual entertainment, where there\u2019s never a \u200b\u201c<\/span>better luck next time\u2026\u201d for the losers. <\/span>The Long Walk<\/span><\/i> is adapted by screenwriter J.T. Mollner from a\u00a01979<\/span> novella by Stephen King, and has clearly been dredged up to provide contemporary commentary on an America that\u2019s currently being throttled by tinpot demagoguery and a\u00a0general air of depraved malevolence.<\/span><\/p>\n A civil war has left the US<\/span> in a\u00a0state of penury and moral turpitude, and so apparently the best way to boost public morale is to host a\u00a0televised death march in which 50<\/span> boys head on a\u00a0long walk with no destination. Those who drop below 3<\/span>mph for too long, well\u2026 it\u2019s a\u00a0rifle round to the cranium, presented by director Francis Lawrence in extreme close-up and from every vantage imaginable across the mega\u00a0trek.<\/span><\/p>\n Raymond Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) is walker 47<\/span>, in the mix for mysterious personal reasons rather than the cash jackpot and the fulfilling of a\u00a0single wish by a\u00a0gravel-voiced, militaristic overseer known as The Major, menacingly played by Mark Hamill. Garrity makes fast friends with walker 23<\/span>, Peter McVries (David Jonsson), who becomes his saviour during a\u00a0few foul-ups, and the pair assist one another as the other boys fall by the wayside (and to their doom) for all manner of superficial reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n The film works best when it allows the boys to simply shoot the breeze and discuss the lives they\u2019ve led up to this moment. Though the majority of the contestants are simply there as canon fodder for Lawrence and his gore SFX<\/span> team, there\u2019s a\u00a0central ensemble who are allowed a\u00a0little bit of back story to make the point that, when the government is corrupt, all human archetypes can fall under the hammer. As long as those archetypes are\u00a0male.<\/span><\/p>\n The film\u2019s cynicism can be forgiven to an extent as it\u2019s baked into its entire concept, but there\u2019s a\u00a0distinct lack of mystery to how things play out, and it becomes fairly obvious to see who\u2019s going to drop and how just from a\u00a0few simple traits. It\u2019s an interesting choice, though, to never reveal the perspective of the viewers or any other characters who aren\u2019t present on the walk. We know this grim ordeal is being caught on cameras that look like the scopes on sniper rifles, but is anyone actually watching?<\/span><\/p>\n In a\u00a0crowded field for these types of stories, <\/span>The Long Walk<\/span><\/i> is happy to keep pace in the middle of the pack before puttering out a\u00a0little way from the finishing line.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\nGet more Little White\u00a0Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n