"Walk or Die"
Francis Lawrence never struck me as an auteur director. The Long Walk is his closest to a a personal filmmaking effort.
Constantine was probably his best flick, the man directed tons and tons of music videos, a sh***y version of I Am Legend, Red Sparrow, four Hunger Games, those probably qualifying him for this film.
Stephen King's novel The Long Walk was published in 1979 under the name Richard Bachman, same as The Running Man, Rage, etc.
It is set in a dystopic America, as in Hunger Games or recently in Civil War, in which young men participate in a race, without stops, until one remains. Same principle as Turkey Shoot or The Running Man (which was remade this year). You have to keep walking at 3mph, steadily. You get only three warnings, one erased per hour if you march on.
The camera moves and moves and moves all along with the protagonist. The whole film is in movement. Belgian cinematographer Jo Willems, who worked with Lawrence on his Hunger Games films and Red Sparrow shot the film anamorpically on 2.39.1. The whole thing was shot in Manitoa, Canada, for 20 mill. $.
The ensemble young actors are convincing, it helps they are not known. They are all called by their numbers. Cooper Hoffman (#47 / Licorice Pizza), David Jonsson (#23,
Alien: Romulus), Garrett Wareing (# 38/ God is a Bullet), Charlie Plummer (#5 /
All the Money in the World). Mark Hammil does a career best villain as The Major. Judy Greer is the only woman in the cast, as Cooper Hoffman's mother. The racial aspect, white, black, white, white, Asian, Indian. Let's say that is not the "woke" or globalism problem, welll, no Mexicanos, hispanics.
Problem is the language, they all swear non stop, I guess they said, oh, it's Rated R so we can swear all the time we want. But f**k every three words is gratuitous to say the least, and they all talk the same swearing game, the boys as well as the major.
Script by J.T. Mollner (Strange Darling), the lastest on a series of aborted adpatations, from George A. Romero to Frank Darabont.
Pulsing and dramatic score by Jeremiah Fraites, end titles have a country/Americana song composed for the film by Shaboozey & Stephen Wilson Jr.- Took a Walk (not on the soundtrack). A rendition of Oh My Darling Clementine is sung by the boys at Mile 260 !!!
Reminded me of the WW2 war films,
Sidney Lumet's The Hill (1965) in particular. And as they were running, of the final run of Black Hawk Down.
7 out of 10 / 3.5 out of 5 !!!
*would've been more but I'd cut 15 min from the 108 min. running time, it loses its rhythm and has repetitions, most of the 50 "walkers" are just extras (in King's original there were 100 participants).
The premise is as absurd as it gets and you got to believe it, also the lenght of the march is beyond belief...
