Mladen and Del review ‘The Long Walk

Image courtesy of Lionsgate.

“The Long Walk” starring scads of teenager-looking folk getting butchered and adults doing the butchering. To make Del happy, here are a few starring names, Cooper Hoffman as #47, David Jonsson as #23, #46 is Ben Wang, Luke Skywalker as The Major, and others. Based on a Stephen King (also a scriptwriter for the film) story. Directed by Francis Lawrence. 1 hour, 48 minutes. Rated R. Theatrical release.

Plot summary: America has fallen on hard times, its government subsumed by a fascist autocrat (sound familiar?), its economy in ruins, its First World status in danger of revocation. But for the lucky survivor of The Long Walk, untold riches await. If they fail, the penalty is death.

Spoilers: A few but you probably know as much from watching the trailers.

Mladen’s take

Think of “The Long Walk” as an inverted “Stand By Me.” Both are books by Stephen King but one misses the mark as a compelling buddy movie and the other is a cuddly story about boys strengthening friendships as they search for proof of a tragedy.

Hence, unsurprisingly, I waited impatiently for the young adult long walkers to fail at long‑distance walking and get shot in the recently released “The Long Walk,” which should be re‑titled “The Long Slog” because of how the film drags on and on. I was only a little curious about which one of the “volunteers” would finish the trek to win one wish, unimaginable riches, and the gratefulness of a nation edging toward collapse.

Reckon I should summarize the film plot before pressing on.

Set in the past, while mimicking much of what’s occurring in the U.S. and globally today, the dystopian wonderland portrayed in the film hosts an annual competition known as The Long Walk. The walk is a test of individual endurance and, by extension, the endurance of a country hobbled by a ruinous war, a “lazy” workforce, and vestiges of individuality and unapproved thought. How do we learn this? Because the gruff, paternalistic, and merciless “Major,” played nicely by Mark Hamill, says so at the beginning of the film and throughout as the 50 walkers drop out one by one when they fail to maintain a pace of no less than 3 mph. By dropping out I mean three warnings for going too slow and then a .223-caliber bullet to the head. There can be only one winner. The walkers walk day and night rain or shine, there are no bathroom breaks, which leads to one genuinely gross scene and a second that’s only slightly less gross, and their misery is broadcast live for the viewing pleasure of a spiritually desiccated citizenry. The walkers are provided water and food paste to, I assume, prolong the spectacle over days. After all, watching others suffer is a treat.

Oh, almost forgot. To intensify the film’s bleakness, the contestants are re‑named as two‑digit numbers. It’s their numbers that are called off when they begin to lag. “Number 18, first warning” booms the loudspeaker for all to hear.   

As with the last two films Del and I reviewed – “Nobody 2” and “The Toxic Avenger” – “The Long Walk” is part of what I call the Big Screen Summer of Nihilism 2025. If a film ain’t violent, a mirror of our ongoing decline as a species, and then gives us a delirious glimmer of hope that everything will be OK, there’s no way it’ll recoup the money, plus profit, burned to make it.

I have many gripes about “The Long Walk.” My biggest is the existential chattiness of the walkers as the walk progresses and the walkers are offed. I just couldn’t shake the doubt that these almost‑men would bond as compadres, sharing their feelings and stories about their shitty lives while trudging along with armored vehicles and nearly faceless executioners‑in‑waiting as escorts. Quick Gen Whatever, who’s Kierkegaard? Yeah.

Another problem, why would a country be inspired by what 50 youths – one from each state – try to do, walking until only one is left standing. It’s revolting. No? A premeditated death march organized, funded, and pulled off by fascists and enjoyed by a vacant population. Disgusting. But, hell, I’m from Florida. If my state long walker buys the “ticket” and the muther from Alabama lasts longer or, God forbid, wins, I’d be pissed and inspired to hate rather than enchanted and inspired to hang in there until the good times arrive.

Want your feeling of impending doom validated, see “The Long Walk,” a ponderous “C” of a movie. If you’re tired of the insufferable angst infused through many of the films – “The Long Walk” among them – produced these days, see “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”  

Del’s take

“The Long Walk” is a charming and introspective examination of a nation’s soul, populated with heartwarming and endearing characters who briskly carry the story forward to its upbeat and morally affirming conclusion. …

Sarcasm is my superpower.

I hated “The Long Walk” and thought it was stupid. There. How’s that for a review?

I’m mildly resentful I was so easily duped by the promotions – “The BEST adaptation of a Stephen King movie EVER!” they enthused. No. No it isn’t. Not by a long shot. “The Shawshank Redemption” earns that title, possibly followed by “Stand By Me” and Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” “The Long Walk” is down there with “Maximum Overdrive” and “Sleepwalkers,” except it takes itself more seriously than those movies, which is laughable.

It isn’t just the characters on the screen going through an ordeal. “The Long Walk” is ponderous for us all, filled with politically acceptable soliloquies delivered by young men who talk like old men. And it’s pointlessly violent and graphic. Do we really need to see a young man suffer explosive diarrhea? Do we need to see him getting his head blown off – literally – as a consequence of his indiscretion?

And there are strange anachronisms I can’t understand. The story is set in an alternate universe, where America is recovering from “the war” and has fallen on hard times. It’s as if the entire country has become a scattering of shacks along a gravel road in the poorest county of backwoods Mississippi. The timeline is set roughly in the 1960s – the cars are ’60s models, the clothes vaguely ’60s-ish, and the weapons are vintage ’60s. But the characters use modern idioms, such as “It’s all good” or “He has an issue.” And the technology that monitors the walkers’ speed, immediately flagging them if they fall below 3 mph, is beyond anything I remember from the 1960s.

But mostly it’s the unrealistic behavior of the characters that put me off. These young men didn’t act like young men. Rather, they were the young homeowners in the Progressive Insurance ads, the ones who are becoming their parents. They were too earnest, too old-fashioned, too preoccupied with matters that young men don’t worry about but their parents do … in other words, too square. That’s an expression from the ’60s. Why didn’t they use that in the movie?

Their cheesy moralizing seemed to ignore the reality of their predicament – that they’d voluntarily embarked on a death march and may the best man win. It was all so preachy – and it wasn’t even good preachy. More like crappy preachy to satisfy the groupthink that passes for public discourse these days.

Mladen praised Mark Hamill’s performance but I disagree. While there was nothing wrong with Hamill’s performance, the character was written poorly, a caricature of every B-movie bad guy. I find villains with nuance and sophistication to be more effective because they’re more lifelike. The Major was just a stereotype and not a very good one at that.

Other features of this ilk have done it better. The Netflix series “Squid Games” delivers everything “The Long Walk” offers and more – actual pathos for its characters. The fifth episode of Season 1 was so gut-wrenching I nearly shed a tear. And despite the silliness of “The Hunger Games” the writers and directors managed to convey its human component without pedantic lectures. “Lord of the Flies” was the ultimate test of adolescent humanity.

I’m giving “The Long Walk” a generous C. With a better script it could have been an A, but Stephen King’s age is beginning to show. The movie seemed ripped from the ’60s, but in ways King never intended.

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.

Image courtesy of Credo Entertainment Group and USA Pictures.

“Trucks” stars Timothy Busfield as Ray, Brenda Blake as Hope, Brendan Fletcher as Logan, Amy Stewart as Abby, and others. Directed by Chris Thomson. Rated PG-13 with a 95-minute run time. See it on Amazon Prime, Tubi, Apple TV and Vudu.

Mladen’s take

To recuperate my manliness after Del forced me to watch and review “Barbie” and “Wham!,” I made him watch 1997’s “Trucks.” And, what a film it is. From its big rig practical effects to the bonkers scene involving a Tonka-looking radio-controlled toy truck, the movie plows through your disbelief and eye rolling like a convoy of rabid Teamsters through a school zone.

Here, feel free to skip to the next paragraph. Del wants a movie summary in each review, so I’m giving you one, like it or not. “Trucks” is based on a Stephen King short story. In “Trucks,” trucks come alive, herding people into crappy buildings in a dusty town not far from Area 51. The trucks terrorize the huddled humans and, when needed, run over or otherwise murder a few. The self-driving, bloodthirsty machines, who talk to each other by flashing their headlights and switching windshield wipers on and off, are animated by … I’m not sure. The victims talk about mysterious satellite dishes erected at the nearby Air Force base, aliens attracted to Earth by SETI, a stolen election for president, the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and, wait, I think I’m confusing one government conspiracy with another.

“Trucks” has flaws that go unremedied. There’s no nudity. The swearing is mild. The violence is not as graphic as it could’ve been, though the fire axe-wielding hazmat suit scene in a disaster response van is pretty damn terrific. And, let’s not forget the toy truck and mailman incident that unfolds about half-way through the film. It’s imaginative. It’s ridiculous. It’s carnage laced. In short, it’s perfect.

“Trucks” also has flaws that get remedied. For example, the killer trucks are autonomous but have no way of refueling themselves. So, through much of the film, I’m like, “Stupid rednecks, sit tight until the monstrous machines run out of gas.” Then comes along our principal scared, bewildered, and desperate protagonist (“Ray” portrayed by Timothy Busfield) who notices that the trucks had chances to kill him but didn’t. Why? Why did he live while some of his fellow captives died? Well, the trucks signal the answer to him. You see, Ray is the town’s gas station owner. The machines spared Ray because they needed him to refuel them. If he didn’t, they’d splatter his son and nascent girlfriend all over the desert sand. Come on, concede that’s a clever way for the trucks (and the movie’s plot) to overcome their lack of hands with opposable thumbs to pump diesel.

Because “Trucks” is based on a King short story and King often sways toward the bleak, the film’s ending is somewhat discombobulating. But, don’t worry, the ending is nothing like the heavily traumatizing conclusion of another movie based on King’s writing, “The Mist.”

Del’s take

I was confused.

Fifteen minutes into “Trucks” and still no Emilio Estevez. What the hell was going on?

A quick dive into the Internet Movie Database disabused me of my mental fog. “Trucks” is not “Maximum Overdrive,” the cheesy ’80s-vintage scifi-horror movie directed by none other than horror author Stephen King. Instead, “Trucks” is a cheesy ’90s-vintage scifi-horror movie based on the same short story, “Trucks,” that inspired “Maximum Overdrive.” And that story was written by none other than horror author Stephen King.

That’s about as clear as my soap-scum infused glass shower doors.

I’d describe “Trucks” as a genre hybrid, falling somewhere between a classic ’50s big bug movie and a Robert Rodriguez grindhouse gorefest, Why anybody thought “Trucks” was worthy of a remake escapes me, especially when King wrote many other memorable stories – the one about the guy who drinks bad beer and turns into a giant escargot comes to mind every time I pop the tab on a can of Natty Light. But then, why are there 27 “Children of the Corn”s or 91 “Lawnmower Man”s? The answer, of course, is that Americans have no bottom when it comes to schlock.

And that’s what “Trucks” is – schlock. It’s one of those movies that’s so bad, it’s good – except “Trucks” isn’t good. It’s terrible, and Mladen owes me big time. At least when I make him watch something out of his comfort zone it’s something decent, and good. “Trucks” is a Baby Ruth bar floating in the swimming pool of moviedom. The acting is awful. The script is laughably inept. No cliché is left behind. And there are plot holes big enough to … ahem … drive a truck through. It’s like watching political aides trying to teach Ron DeSantis how to eat pudding with chopsticks. In other words, it’s a mess.

Here’s an example of the breathtaking dialogue:

Teenage girl: “Why does everybody keep dying?” (Hmmm? Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that they’re being RUN OVER BY TRUCKS?)

Old man: “I don’t know. I’m just an old hippie.”

??????????????????????

The trucks, we are told, have been brought to life by either Area 51, a toxic gas cloud, the Earth sailing through a comet’s tail, aliens … or maybe “Trucks” is a cautionary tale, warning against the unintended consequences of electing a fascist as president of the United States and then letting him skate when his crimes become public knowledge. Either way, I think everyone involved in the movie sailed through a comet’s tail because if “Maximum Overdrive” proves that horror authors should stick to writing horror stories and not directing horror movies, “Trucks” proves that even dedicated filmmakers can sometimes screw up, and “Trucks” is a Godzilla-sized Phillips-head of a screw(up).

Mladen didn’t assign a letter grade to “Trucks” so I’ll assume he’s giving it an F. I’ll be generous and award a D- seeing as how it’s truer to the short story than “Maximum Overdrive.”

When they come out with a scifi-horror movie titled “Night of the Killer Prius,” I’m there. But “Maximum Overdrive” and “Trucks” is a two-movie convoy of 18-wheeled schlock. For a vastly superior killer truck movie, check out “Duel.” Meantime, I’ll stick to the passing lane.

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.