Review: 'The Long Walk' is a brutally stripped-down 'Hunger Games,' with a squad of strong young actors in an authoritarian dystopia

Bleak, brutal and brilliant, director Francis Lawrence’s “The Long Walk” is the authoritarian allegory these times require — a tale of bread and circuses in an oppressive regime and the lengths some people will go, literally, to fight back.

Based on a story Stephen King wrote under his pen name, Richard Bachman, “The Long Walk” imagines a near-future American wasteland, 19 years after a war that ended with a fascist government running the country. At the head is The Major (Mark Hamill), a gruff old soldier who rules by fear and violence. 

As a distraction, he oversees an annual contest in which young men from each of the 50 states, chosen by lottery, compete to walk nonstop longer than the others, keeping a steady pace of 3 mph. If one young man should stop or slow down for 10 seconds, he is given a warning. Ten more seconds, a second warning. Ten more seconds, and “you get your ticket” — a bullet in the head. The last man standing wins riches and a wish to do anything he wants.

The scenario is like a more dystopian, less stage-managed version of “The Hunger Games,” except Lawrence (who’s directed all but the first movie in that franchise) is holding back very little of the story’s viciousness. When we see the elimination of the first competitor (“Jojo Rabbit’s” Roman Griffin Davis), we’re convinced this movie is going dark early and often.

The main action is among the three dozen or so young walkers, and screenwriter JT Mollnar does an admirable job giving many of them moments to stand out. A solid supporting cast of young actors — including Ben Wang (“Karate Kid: Legends”), Charlie Plummer (“Spontaneous”), Tut Nyuot and Garrett Wareing among them — make the walking scenes pulsate with barely concealed terror.

At the heart of “The Long Walk” are Cooper Hoffman (“Licorice Pizza”) as Ray, who has a particular reason to be the last walker alive, and David Jonsson (“Alien: Romulus”) as Peter, for whom positivity has become a survival skill. Their twinned performances play well opposite Hamill’s intensely nasty Major, and find the soul within the savagery of a tyrannical America that we can only hope we won’t see outside the movie theater.

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‘The Long Walk’

★★★★

Opens Friday, September 12, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, suicide, pervasive language, and sexual references. Running time: 108 minutes.

Review: 'Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale' gives fans a last chance to luxuriate in 1930s wealth and privilege, and gentle soap-opera theatrics

“Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” is a charmingly instructive example of message discipline, since series creator and screenwriter Julian Fellowes repeats the same storyline with every character: This chapter of the lives of these characters is over, and the next one will happen off-camera.

This third and presumably final movie based on the popular British TV series focuses on transitions for the wealthy Crawley family and their staff of loyal servants. It’s 1930, and we’re told that the Crawley fortune — largely brought into the family by Lady Cora Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern), the American wife of Lord Grantham, aka Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) — has largely survived the stock-market crash of 1929. However, when Cora’s brother, Henry (Paul Giamatti), visits the titular estate, he tells Cora that their late mother’s money is perilously close to vanishing, and with it the future of Downton Abbey.

Henry brings in tow Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola, from “The Brutalist”), a handsome and seemingly wealthy investor, who has offered a plan to reinvest what’s left of Mama’s money to recoup Henry’s past losses. Gus is quite charming, as seen when over many gin cocktails, he and Lord Grantham’s daughter, Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery), end up sleeping together. 

Mary, you see, is finally unencumbered by a husband, having recently received her divorce from Lord Henry Talbot, the racing driver and cad. (Played by Matthew Goode in the series and the first movie, Henry Talbot is nowhere to be seen this time.) And while being single should be liberating, just as Mary is starting to take control of Downton Abbey’s operations, it’s also fodder for scandal. Mary experiences this at a society party, when the hostess, Lady Petersfield (Joely Richardson), ushers Mary out before royalty arrives.

Back at the mansion, the servants are going through some big changes. The imperious head butler, Carson (Jim Carter), has retired, but can’t quite give up the job to his successor, the former footman Andy Parker (Michael Fox). The head cook, Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol), is more willing to hand over her post to her longtime assistant, Daisy Parker (Sophie McShera) — with the climax coming when Daisy and Andy, who are married, are put in charge of a big dinner party where the guests include the Crawley family’s old Hollywood friend, Guy Dexter (Dominic West), and a very famous acquaintance, continuing the show’s fascination with implanting real-life figures into the Crawleys’ orbit.

If you’re not familiar with the series or the previous two movies, some aspects of the characters may be lost on you — like why Mary’s tight bond with her sister, Lady Edith Hexham (Laura Carmichael), should be surprising; or why it’s weird to hear chauffeur-turned-relative Tom Branson (Allen Leech) talking like a capitalist. But for fans, reuniting with these folks is like a pleasant family reunion. 

Like a family reunion, though, one notices when a beloved relative isn’t there. The missing piece here is the family’s matriarch, Violet Crawley, who died in the last movie. She was played by Dame Maggie Smith, who herself died last year (and to whom the movie is dedicated) — and the absence of her acerbic humor is greatly missed, though her old friend, Lady Merton (Penelope Wilton), soldiers on admirably in trying to match it.

I found watching “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” to be a lesson in fan service. Since I’m not a diehard fan, I looked for context clues to spot the signifiers of what makes particular characters and relationships so beloved. And because I’m not invested the way a fan would be, I could appreciate the way Fellowes and director Simon Curtis (“My Week With Marilyn”) set up the storyline to cash in on the fans’ nostalgia for these rich folks and their ceaselessly loyal staff. If you love the series, “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” is a treat you’ll eat up with a spoon.

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‘Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 12, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for suggestive material, smoking and some thematic elements. Running time: 123 minutes.

Review: 'Splitsville' again lets the team of Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin find tension, and laughs, between bromance and romance.

“Splitsville” is a sprightly and perfectly calibrated comedy of romance and bromance gone hilariously wrong, written by and starting real-life pals Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin — who are proving that they are quite adept at this kind of comedy of errors, between this and their 2019 debut “The Climb.”

The movie starts with Marvin’s character, Carey, driving with his wife, Ashley (Adria Arjona), on the way to visit Paul (Covino) and his wife, Julie (Dakota Johnson), at their beach house. Before they get there, though, they witness a horrible freeway crash — which prompts Ashley, a life coach, to think about what she’ll regret in life, and one of those regrets is not telling Carey before now that she wants a divorce.

Carey eventually arrives alone to Paul and Julie’s. (The way he gets to the house is the first of the movies many sustained sight gags.) Over wine, Paul and Julie tell Carey the secret of their long marriage: They have an open relationship, and each are OK if the other sleeps with someone else.

At least that’s what they tell themselves. When Paul returns to the city for business, Julie confides in Carey that she is sure he’s off having an affair with another woman — which bothers Julie more than she wants to admit when Paul’s there. Naturally, Julie decides the way to process this is to have sex with Carey.

After doing the deed with Juiie, Carey feels guilty and wants to get back together with Ashley. Unfortunately for him, Ashley already has moved on to her next lover, a hunky but dim bartender, Jackson (Charlie Gillespie). And while Ashley runs through a squad of new lovers (including a mentalist played by “Succession’s” Nicholas Braun), Julie decides she’s done with Paul’s lies — sexual and financial — and shows an interest in hooking up again with Carey.

As with “The Climb,” Covino (who directed both films) and Marvin demonstrate an uncanny ability to write precisely plotted comedies that feel improvisational. They also serve their material well in their performances, with Covino as the sniveling cad and Marvin as the good-natured heel. They also go for broke starring in one of the funniest fight scenes to be featured in a movie in ages.

The women with whom Covino and Marvin are paired deliver more than just glamorous looks. Johnson gives Julie a dry wit as she tries to rise above Paul’s duplicity and Carey’s lovelorn gazes. And Arjona steals the movie by capturing Ashley’s indecision over whether or not to win Carey back. 

Where Covino and Marvin get the most laughs are in a series of set pieces — particularly an 11th birthday party for Julie and Paul’s son, Russ (Simon Webster) — where Paul and Carey are confronted with the consequences of their romantic choices. Those moments, staged like an ensemble comedy at double speed, make “Splitsville” a singularly hilarious movie.

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‘Splitsville’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 5, in theaters. Rated R for language throughout, sexual content and graphic nudity. Running time: 104 minutes.

Review: 'Twinless' is an outrageously dark comedy about death and loneliness, sent soaring by writer-director James Sweeney's unhinged performance

How much enjoyment a viewer gets from “Twinless” is dependent on how much you can tolerate the character of Dennis — played by the film’s writer-director, James Sweeney, as what can best be described as a “Napoleon Dynamite” vibe, if Napoleon were gay and a bit psycho.

Sweeney’s character, Dennis, doesn’t open the movie. That place is held by Roman (Dylan O’Brien), a guy from Idaho who acknowledges that he’s “not the brightest tool in the shed.” We first see Roman at a funeral for his gay twin brother, Rocky (played by O’Brien in flashbacks), who died in an auto-pedestrian accident in Portland, Ore.

After the funeral, Roman and his scowling mom (Lauren Graham), are trying to go through Rocky’s things in his Portland apartment. Roman decides he’s going to stay in Portland awhile, get a job, and try to figure out life without his twin. Roman even joins a support group for people who have lost their twin — which is where he meets Sweeney’s Dennis, who tells the group about his twin, Dean.

That all happens n the first 15 minutes, before the film’s title appears on the screen. This is where Sweeney starts telling Dennis’ side of the story — about which I will try to say little, to keep from spoiling the twists of this sometimes bizarre comedy.

I will say that Roman and Dennis become friends through the support group, and start hanging out together — which is how Roman meets Dennis’ co-worker Marcie (Aisling Franciosi). A romance blooms, which is good news for Roman and Marcie but bad news for Dennis, who fears it will infringe on his friendship.

Sweeney creates a singular character whose insecurities and his talent for turning small problems into big ones will make you laugh and cringe, often at the same time. Crazy as some of the turns Sweeney navigates are, O’Brien doesn’t just hang on for the ride — but adds an underlying menace when Roman demonstrates his hot temper. 

“Twinless” may leave a few audience members out in the cold. For those with an appetite for a comedy that takes a few risks, “Twinless” is a challenge worth exploring.

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‘Twinless’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 5, in theaters. Rated R for sexual content/nudity and language. Running time: 100 minutes

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This review originally appeared on this site on January 24, 2025, when the movie premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'Hamilton,' premiering on the big screen, demonstrates Lin-Manuel Miranda's genius — and the power of bold storytelling for the stage

Like a Fourth of July firework, the movie version of “Hamilton” bursts forth with color and spectacle, bottling the emotional fire that made Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop history lesson a Tony- and Pulitzer-winning masterpiece and a cross-cultural hit.

Miranda’s collaborator Thomas Kail, who directed both the stage version and this movie, makes the smart move of rendering “Hamilton” in its purest, original form, from the stage of the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway. Shot with multiple cameras during two performances in June 2016, with Miranda in the title role and with most of the original cast — and with close-ups and crane shots taken without an audience present — the movie harnesses the evocative lighting, surrealistic staging and hip-hop inventiveness.

The story, taken from Ron Chernow’s biography of America’s first Treasury secretary, follows Hamilton as he goes from a penniless rabble-rouser to Revolutionary War fighter, moving up as secretary to Gen. George Washington (Christopher Jackson) — then, after the war, becoming part of President Washington’s cabinet, where squabbles with rival Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) and his own hubris lead to his political downfall.

Hamilton’s life runs in parallel to that of Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.), whose reticence and hesitation contrasts with Hamilton’s brash, heart-on-his-sleeve passion. Their long rivalry ultimately brings them both to the dueling ground at Weehawken, N.J.

And the play chronicles the eternal love triangle of Hamilton, his wife Eliza (Phillipa Soo), and her older sister — and Hamilton’s intellectual foil — Angelica Schuyler (Renee Elise Goldsberry).

By capturing the play as performed, the movie gets so many details that would be otherwise lost: the physical comedy when Miranda’s Hamilton challenges a hapless orator to a debate; the swagger when Hamilton and Burr consider which Schuyler sister each might seduce; or the practical split-screen of Hamilton and Burr each contemplating new fatherhood during the lullaby “Dear Theodosia.”

Through the close-ups, Kail neatly dissects the play’s trickiest numbers, like the Act I finale “Non-Stop,” to weave through multiple characters without interrupting the flow of music and movement. The onstage camerawork also captures the sly dealing Hamilton must engage in in “The Room Where It Happens,” Jackson’s soulful gravity as Washington, and even the spittle coming out of the mouth of mad King George III (Jonathan Groff).

All that would have been lost in a conventional cinematic adaptation. Take any one of the three duels in the story. In a typical movie shoot, the production might have set up on location on some grassy hill, clothed the actors in expensive costumes, and deployed computer effects to show the bullets leaving the duelists’ pistols. And it would have been just a tenth as interesting, or emotionally compelling, as the choreography and lighting that crystallizes the moment in the stage version.

Also, if this were a regular movie, the producers may have disrupted the casting, for fear an audience would not accept a single actor playing multiple roles. And how would anyone make Diggs choose which show-stopping role to play — Lafayette in the first act or Jefferson in the second?

The choice to shoot after the cast had been working together for more than a year, off-Broadway and then at the Rodgers, let the audience see the performers in their stride. By then, they knew when to pause for a laugh and when to hit the emotional beats for maximum effect. There are moments that resonate here better than in the cast album, which was recorded just after the play’s Broadway premiere.

Seeing this “Hamilton,” in which people of color play the greatest rebels of American history, feels particularly resonant at this moment in our history. In this world turned upside-down by pandemic and civil unrest and endless political squabbles, an electrifying story about people arguing, fighting and loving passionately for freedom, family and legacy is just what we need.

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‘Hamilton’

★★★★

Opens Friday, September 5, in theaters. Rated PG-13 for language and some suggestive material. Running time: 162 minutes (plus some new interview material). 

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This review originally appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune on June 30, 2020, when the movie premiered on Disney+.

Review: 'Caught Stealing' is a dark crime caper that shows Austin Butler's ability to adjust his charisma to fit the movie he's in

After proving he can own a big movie, playing The King in Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” actor Austin Butler shows in Darren Aronofsky’s dark crime caper “Caught Stealing” that he can scale his big personality down to fit the material — and still own every moment of the movie.

Butler plays Hank Thompson, a New York bartender, circa 1998, with an unhealthy obsession with the San Francisco Giants. He has a drinking problem, something his paramedic girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), tries to get him to get under control. He also has a punk musician neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith), who asks Hank to look after his cat when he has to leave town suddenly. 

That’s where Hank’s problems start. Two Russian thugs (Yuri Kolkolnikov and Nikita Kukushkin) come looking for Russ, and when Hank intervenes, they beat the crap out of him — leaving him to wake up in the hospital, Yvonne at his bedside, with one fewer kidney than he started the week with. When he calls the cops, Detective Roman (Regina King), takes his statement and warns him against trying to learn too much on his own. This being the kind of noir crime drama this is, Hank can’t heed that warning.

Soon the trail of unsavory characters in Hank’s life include a gun-happy gangster named Colorado (played by Benito Martinez Ocasio, also known by his musical name, Bad Bunny), and a pair of Hasidic Jewish mobsters (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio) with a lethal reputation. 

Aronofsky puts aside his more surrealist tendencies (e.g. “Requiem for a Dream,” “Black Swan,” “Mother!”), playing Hank’s plight more in the gritty realism of “The Wrestler” and “The Whale.” The new wrinkle is that Charlie Huston’s script (adapted from his novel) injects some comedy, some of it on the morbid side, into the story, like when the mobsters take a captive Hank along to Shabbos, where we meet their bubbe (Carol Kane) and have some matzo ball soup.

Those tonal shifts can be a bit jarring at times, but Butler’s performance holds us steady throughout. In a story where he is playing the man caught up in other people’s intrigue, Butler doesn’t play Hank as a dupe or a fall guy, but as a man who is a step behind the story but capable of catching up and turning the tables. Hank also has a backstory, parceled out judiciously, to explain why his once-promising baseball career never came to fruition.

“Caught Stealing” is also the third movie this month (after David Mackenzie’s “Relay” and Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest”) to take advantage of a certain view of New York City — in this one, a roiling undercurrent of crime and disenchantment, three years before 9/11, where the city is fueled by attitude and a fondness for the Mets. By placing Butler in that sandbox, Aronofsky creates a sharp-elbowed crime thriller with a fascinating streak of melancholy. 

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‘Caught Stealing’

★★★

Opens Friday, August 29, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong violent content, pervasive language, some sexuality/nudity and brief drug use. Running time: 107 minutes.

Review: 'The Roses' pits Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch as a married couple fighting each other and an overly cluttered script

If “The Roses” was just about the dark heart of a couple’s divorce at its center, it could have been one of the great spite-driven comedies of the modern era — if only director Jay Roach and screenwriter Tony McNamara hadn’t gone soft.

This is a revision, of sorts, of the 1989 comedy “The War of the Roses,” in which director Danny DeVito piloted the story of a lawyer (Michael Douglas) and a homemaker-turned-caterer (Kathleen Turner) through a loving marriage that curdles into loathing and attempted murder. The new movie doesn’t credit DeVito’s screenwriter, Michael J. Leeson, but does note Warren Adler, whose novel spurred both films.

Here, Theo Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a London architect who despises the soulless boxy apartment buildings his firm forces him to design. One night, he escapes his colleagues at a dinner, and finds in the restaurant’s kitchen Ivy (Olivia Colman), a chef who’s more talented than her bosses will let her be. They fall for each other instantly, and Theo follows Ivy to America soon after.

The movie jumps ahead 10 years, and the Roses are still giddily in love with each other and with their two children (played by Delaney Quinn and Ollie Robinson in the movie’s first half, and Hala Finley and Wells Rappaport in the second half). Theo has built his dream project, a maritime museum designed to resemble a sailing ship, and celebrates by buying Ivy what she’s always dreamed of: A seaside restaurant where she can make her amazing food.

Then the Roses’ fortunes change drastically. Theo’s museum is a disaster, collapsing in a heavy storm. That same storm forces California travelers to stop at Ivy’s restaurant — and one of them is a food critic, whose rave review sets Ivy on a stratospheric career path. Theo, blackballed by every architectural firm, channels his time and disappointment into raising the kids into athletes, while Ivy builds her food empire. And the resentment builds, from both of them.

McNamara, who wrote “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” for Yorgos Lanthimos, can’t seem to settle on Theo and Ivy’s emotional state from scene to scene. He and Roach are overly occupied with the side players that clutter up the field: The seemingly dying marriage of Amy (Kate McKinnon) and Barry (Andy Samberg), Theo’s architecture friends (Zoë Chao and Jamie Demetriou) and Ivy’s loyal restaurant employees (Sunita Mati and Ncuti Gatwa). 

These talented performers — I’d watch Kate McKinnon file her taxes — aren’t given enough to work with, and we cling onto every moment hoping they’ll do something truly funny. This is a particular shame for Gatwa, recently departed from “Doctor Who,” whose abundant charisma gets wasted here.

Roach hasn’t done a broad comedy since “Dinner for Schmucks” in 2010, and has devoted his recent efforts to biopics, like “Trumbo” and “Bombshell.” He seems to have trouble finding the right tone for Colman and Cumberbatch, or anyone else, to navigate consistently. 

One scene particularly smacks of desperation. It’s late in the movie, when the Rose are negotiating divorce terms — and Ivy’s hard-nosed lawyer (Allison Janney, in her only scene) comes in with a pet Rottweiler. The obvious joke is that the dog is meant to intimidate Theo — but when Janney is already doing that quite well, thank you, what’s the point of adding the Rottweiler?

Even when stranded by McNamara’s overly busy script and Roach’s idiotic direction, Colman and Cumberbatch come close sometimes to displaying the acid wit and mendacity this movie requires. These actors make a great match, especially when showing us why Theo and Ivy don’t.

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‘The Roses’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, August 29, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language throughout, sexual content, and drug content. Running time: 105 minutes.

Review: 'Honey Don't' is comedy noir that director Ethan Coen doesn't handle as gracefully as he used to with his brother

The detective comedy “Honey Don’t!” stuffs too many half-baked ideas into a truncated narrative — one that strenuously tests Roger Ebert’s rule that “a bad movie is never too short,” because I wonder if director Ethan Coen would have had something here if he allowed his movie a few minutes to let its characters and plot threads breathe. 

What Coen does have is Margaret Qualley, who makes the best out of this bad situation.

Qualley — who starred with Geraldine Viswanathan in Coen’s previous lesbian-centered noir comedy, “Drive-Away Dolls” — plays Honey O’Donahue, a small-time private detective in Bakersfield, Calif. She’s at loose ends because the client who just hired her has inconveniently turned up dead. The cops, embodied by the clueless Marty Metakawitch (Charlie Day), decide the woman, Mia Novotny, died in a simple car crash.

Honey’s not sure about that, so she snoops around, trying to figure out why Mia wanted to hire her to begin with. The top of Honey’s suspect list is Rev. Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), a charismatic evangelist who appears in ads for his church all over town. 

Honey senses Rev. Drew is a creep, and that’s without seeing everything we’re seeing — including his bondage-heavy sexual adventures with his parishioners, a murderous flunky (Josh Pafchek) and what appears to be a side hustle in drug trafficking. Rev. Drew is beholden to a mysterious group referred to only as The French., represented by the alluring Cher (played by model-actress Lera Abova), who rides around town on her Vespa.

Honey also is contending with her sister, Heidi (Kristen Connolly), and her many children — most notably Heidi’s rebel teen daughter, Corinne (Talia Ryder). And there’s a flowering romance with MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), a cop who works in the basement of the police station.

Qualley is charming, and impossibly sexy, bantering her way through Bakersfield trying to unravel the mystery — and makes the most out of her underwritten character. (The script is by Coen and his wife, Tricia Cooke; they also wrote “Drive-Away Dolls.”) Qualley’s scenes with Plaza, clothed and naked, are hot enough to pop whatever kernels of popcorn are left unpopped in the bottom of your bucket. 

“Honey Don’t!” often feels like Coen is attempting to rekindle the magical comic noir he and his brother, Joel, created in “The Big Lebowski.” But this movie lacks the control of the narrative Coen had when working with his brother, or even what he displayed working solo on “Drive-Away Dolls.” If we can’t get the Coen brothers back together, can we at least give Joel temporary custody of Qualley?

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‘Honey Don’t!’

★★

Opens Friday, August 22, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, some strong violence, and language. Running time: 88 minutes.