The rules are brutally simple in this early Stephen King short story. Keep walking above a set speed. Slow down, get three warnings, and you are shot. Last one standing wins a fortune and a single wish. In act one we meet Ray Garraty, played by Cooper Hoffman, saying goodbye to his mother, Judy Greer, and stepping onto the road with a nervous mix of bravado and dread. It is Lord of the Flies by way of a motorway service station.
Lawrence, who knows a thing or two about televised survival from The Hunger Games, keeps the tone grim and controlled. Hoffman brings a soft spoken decency to Garraty that makes you lean in, while David Jonsson’s sharper, more guarded Peter gives the film its emotional friction. Mark Hamill is almost unrecognisable as the Major, barking slogans with a pageant smile that never reaches his eyes. He is chilling, and clearly enjoying it.
The film lives or dies on repetition. Boys walk, boys talk, boys fall. The cinematography turns endless highways into something claustrophobic, all bleached skies and creeping dread. You can feel the exhaustion setting into your own legs. The writing smartly teases out backstories in fragments, though at times the pacing mirrors the contest a little too faithfully. It can feel like a slog, which may be the point, but it tests your stamina.
Still, as an allegory about spectacle, authority and the lie of meritocracy, it hits uncomfortably close to home. Bleak, blunt, and bruising.