I’m sure at one point you’ve come across a Kenyan walking from one side of a city like Nairobi or Mombasa to the other on TikTok. Its content, done for fun, likes, and comments.
Now picture the same group in a televised walking event, only this time organised by the government and aimed at young men. The catch? It’s voluntary, but only one is allowed to finish.
Fall below the set pace of three miles per hour, and you’re executed on the spot. The last man standing takes home a fortune and a wish.
That’s the brutal story Stephen King wrote in 1979 under his Richard Bachman pseudonym, and it’s now been adapted for the big screen by Francis Lawrence.
The Long Walk
The Long Walk is a 2025 American dystopian survival thriller directed and produced by Lawrence from a screenplay by JT Mollner, adapted from King’s novel.
The cast includes Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Joshua Odjick, Judy Greer, and Mark Hamill.
The premise makes it sound like a big-budget action film, but Lawrence strips it down.
The man who gave us several Hunger Games movies steers clear of spectacle. No explosions, no rousing speeches. Just young men walking and talking on the road, armed guards, and the slow collapse of bodies and minds. The story doesn’t move much in a traditional way.
Instead, the tension comes from endurance, and who breaks down next. It’s like Squid Game stretched into one long, brutal walk.
The actors carry much of the weight. Hoffman plays Ray, whose purpose in the Walk shifts over time (no spoilers here). Jonsson’s Pete is his opposite: warm, chatty, likeable.
Their friendship is the film’s anchor. Without it, you’d just be watching cruelty unfold. With it, you care. You hope, and that's the trap, because the third act is just dread because of that.
The Road
The Walk itself is the film’s most unsettling character. From the opening, the director messes with you. The film first feels grounded, even ordinary, but up to the title card, when the rules set in.
Suddenly, the road becomes unsettling, and the emptiness of the path begins to make you question that world.
Visually, the movie avoids a flashy style. Colours are drained, the costumes muted. The landscapes are stark, sometimes beautiful, almost tricking you into forgetting the horror taking place. The camera work, especially in the final stretch, makes every step a struggle.
Night scenes are cinematic, creative lighting frames the characters in ways that make you feel their isolation even when they are in a group.
The sound design and framing make each gunshot execution jarring, even when it sounds ordinary, and as tension builds, even the sight of a soldier’s rifle becomes unbearable.
That said, the world-building had me confused . We’re told the Walk grips the entire nation, yet the crowd scenes feel thin. The broadcast doesn’t match the supposed national obsession. Compared to the circus of The Hunger Games, this feels underdeveloped, like they had a budgetary issue.
The script also drags at times. There's a lot of exposition from the minute the young men meet, which fits thematically but clashes with the physical torment they’re supposed to be enduring. Sometimes it feels like they’re talking more than walking.
Without spoiling anything, the ending leans too heavily on convenience. A wish and a face off with the Major works based on what has been established in the story, but the logic behind it didn’t make sense.
It works in the moment, less so once you start to think it through.
If you’ve seen The Hunger Games or Squid Game, this will feel familiar in setup. The difference here is how it treats tension. Relationships and bonds drive the story, not spectacle. You invest in the young men even as you watch death closes in.
Jonsson, last seen in Alien: Romulus, gives the good performance. His humour and warmth balance Hoffman’s intensity and make the story bearable.
The deeper you get into his story, the more his charm feels like defiance. Watching him and Hoffman push through the walk is tough, and the choices they’re forced into are heartbreaking.
Final Thoughts
This is not an easy watch. The Long Walk is grim, unsettling, and slow by design. Some viewers may find it monotonous, others gripping. For the fainthearted, it’s punishing.
The film also underlines something about King’s work: his tendency to put young people through hell. Between IT and this, you start to wonder if he has a personal grudge against them.
At its best, the movie captures the raw, unsettling cruelty of King’s story while finding humanity in fleeting connections. At its weakest, it drags and leaves gaps in its world. Either way, you won’t forget it and possibly won’t want to experience it again.
