Movie Review: The Long Walk

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The description for the new movie “The Long Walk” is one of the strangest in the history of movies.

After a worldwide financial disaster where everybody lives in extreme poverty, a group of about 50 young men agree to compete in a contest where they have to walk nonstop until there is only one person standing. The winner of this contest will be given a substantial amount of money, although the exact dollar amount is never specified in this story. The rules are that if anyone walks at a pace slower than three miles per hour, they are given three warnings and then they are shot in the head. So in this contest, there is a 98% chance of death and only a 2% chance of winning. Right from the beginning, this story makes no sense because nobody would enter a contest that has a 98% chance of death, regardless of how extreme the global poverty is.

The main character, Raymond Garrity (Cooper Hoffman) enters this contest to both help his mother out of extreme poverty and to avenge his father, as we find out much later in this story. The best part of this film is the developing friendship between Garrity and Peter McVries (David Johnson), which grows during this entire story.

Mark Hamill plays The Major, a cruel military leader of this walking contest. There are many scenes of extreme violent death as we repeatedly see young men shot in the head or body, which I thought was over the top, unnecessary at this level of extreme gore. Worse was a scene of a man defecating while trying to maintain the three-mile-per-hour walking pace. Why the director and producers decided to show something this grotesque is anyone’s guess. What is the future of the actor who decided to take a part like this in this movie?

The acting is good overall, despite the insane story, with a way too high 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating. My rating is a 70% pass, due to the extremely unnecessary scenes of death, people being shot in the head, and disgusting scenes. It is hard to understand the point of a film like this, other than making a movie that has never been done before. Considering the over 350 miles of walking in 5 days, there is no way any human could walk this far, nonstop for that many days at a three mile and hour pace.

Movie Review: A Little Prayer

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The new movie “A Little Prayer” is one of the most subtle and quiet movies I have ever seen. This story is about the small middle-class lives of people who live in average ranch houses and work in a small local sheet metal factory owned by Bill, played by David Strathairn, who is a Vietnam veteran.

Numerous stories comprise this quiet tale, including the infidelity of Bill’s son, David (Will Pullen), with a coworker, Narcedalia (Dascha Polanco), who both work at the sheet metal company. David is cheating on Tammy (Jane Levy), who lives with him in his parents’ house. It turns out that David has some serious emotional problems as a war veteran after his return from IRAQ, which adds another dimension to David’s serial cheating. It was good to see Jane Levy again after the cancellation of her very good TV show “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” in 2021.

The most difficult to watch part of this film is the return home of Pattie (Anna Camp), who is an abusive mother to her 5-year-old girl, with several scenes that were hard to watch. Pattie has returned home because she left her husband and is in the middle of a divorce. I found it unusual that nobody in the family objected to Patti’s constant berating of her child, Hattie (Billie Roy), which I thought at times was too much and amounted to overkill.

This story demonstrates that a movie does not have to be shocking, overly different, with explosive emotional scenes to be an excellent film experience. Problems come to all of us regardless of age or financial status. A Little Prayer demonstrates so many problems in a subtle and quiet way that I have never seen in any movie.

This film is extremely well acted, with a very high 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating, and I agree with this rating and highly recommend this movie.

Movie Review: Splitsville

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The new movie “Splitsville” starts in a car with a married couple, after witnessing a bad car accident, get into an argument where the wife, Ashley, played by Adria Arjona, tells her husband, Carey, played by Kyle Marvin that she not only wants a divorce, but has been having many affairs. In an effort to be very new and different, Cary steps out of the car and then starts running away for many miles. The last time I saw an emotional reaction to a depressing event involving long-distance running was “Forest Gump” (1994). This time around, running for miles after finding out Carey’s wife wanted a divorce was more weird than effective.

Splitsville plays like a parody of all the many things that can go wrong in a relationship, including the problems with monogamy. This story is also about what can go wrong in an open marriage, which is the relationship solution of Julie and Paul, played by Dakota Johnson and Michael Angelo Covino, who are close friends with Carey. The point of all this is what we all know: there are no easy answers, no perfect marriages or relationships. Many things can go wrong in life when you are single, problems can grow exponentially within any marriage, and even more when you have children. These include money problems, another aspect of this story within the relationship of Julie and Paul.

Another unusual new idea is a huge fistfight between close friends Carey and Paul that travels throughout a large lakehouse, breaking furniture and even a massive fish tank. Much of this is crazy and unexpected, and is mostly an attempt to make the film more memorable than it would be otherwise, without these insane scenes.

There are some funny moments and some good acting within this insane story, and while I do not agree with the too high 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I give this unusual movie a 75% and a mild recommendation.