The Long Walk (2025) Dir: Francis Lawrence
- Ridley Coote
- Sep 13
- 3 min read
Instagram post:
When the first trailers dropped for Francis Lawrence's survival horror, based on the Stephen King novella of the same name, I'll be honest, my excitement for it was fairly nominal. That changed when I saw just how positive the critical and audience reception for it was. However, even with people comparing it to the likes of 'The Shawshank Redemption', I decided it was best to keep my expectations moderate.
The film established two things pretty promptly; the world - a dystopian vision of America that was not as unfamiliar as I think some would like to think, and the stakes, which were daunting, and remained in the forefront of the mind throughout the film. The film never let the thought of the consequences of the film leave the viewers mind. The constant movement of both the cast and the camera kept the film moving in a literal sense as well as maintaining that underlying feeling of threat to the characters.
Something else that this film did excellently was to give several of its characters personality and life early on, including some of the less significant ones. Furthermore, with the growing attachments to the various characters in the film, there came the painful twinge of knowing that, inevitably, most of them would be killed off. This allowed the film to not only be tense and engrossing, but to be absolutely emotionally grueling and devastating on top of all of that.
The narrative was a brilliant and compelling combination of extremely bleak and unwaveringly hopeful. I wasn't expecting a story essentially about walking to be as riveting and engaging as it was. It was full of character development, conflict, interesting and evolving dynamics, and even a degree of mystery. The film never stopped feeding the audience story. If I had one slight nitpick, it would be that it was fairly clear who the final few would be, but that didn't really bother me at all.
Cooper Hoffman's leading performance was truly excellent, as he not only built an endearing and resilient character for the audience to latch onto, but managed to show a vast range of emotions, all while maintaining movement and having very good chemistry with his co-stars. Hoffman seems to be developing into a very dependable actor, and his performance here was testament to that. It was a very good display from him, and I cannot stress enough just how impressed I was.
There was someone who outdid him, though. David Jonsson absolutely deserves award season buzz at the very least for his performance, because, my goodness, this man was so incredibly good in this film. I knew he was a good actor, based on his performance in 2024's excellent 'Alien: Romulus', but this took my estimations of his abilities to a whole new level. People need to clue-in to David Jonsson, because the man has oodles of talent and he's still just at the beginning of his feature film career.
There were a few actors who, with help from an enjoyably developing story, grew on me a lot, as the film progressed. Garrett Wareing went a little under the radar at first, but by the end, I rated him quite highly - he reminded me of Wyatt Russell, and I mean that in the most positive way. I was also impressed by the duo of Tut Nyuot and Ben Wang, who were extremely likable in their respective roles, as was Judy Greer, despite her lack of screentime. Credit should also go to both Charlie Plummer and Mark Hamill, who provided a pair of excellent antagonistic characters, especially the legendary Hamill.
Overall, I thought this was an unexpectedly superb film, which deserves all of the plaudits it has received. I really did not expect to enjoy this film as much as I did, but it was all so well done, and gave me so much appreciate about it. It proved to be yet another classic Stephen King adaptation, and one that absolutely deserves to be mentioned alongside the likes of 'The Green Mile' and 'The Shawshank Redemption'. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see its reputation continue to grow in the years to come.
Comments