Could a whole movie about walking really work?

Well, yes: the first three Lord of the Rings movies proved it as a concept. But could a whole movie about six men going for walks?

The film, “Old Men Walking,” is accurate in its title. It is about old men walking.

But that’s not all it’s about. The club these friends formed created an opportunity for them to reconnect and find connection that they’ve missed since they were kids. And they hope they can inspire others to do the same.

The film will be showing twice at the Dedham Community Theatre later this month.

Filmmaker, West Roxbury native and one of the subjects of the film Michael Connelly said the walking club was how he and his friends reconnected over the pandemic. . The group is an old friend group formed when they were all kids, but Connelly said they drifted away in life, as many men often do. He said most of his friendships during his middle years, like he found with his friends, were built over jobs and work, but now that he’s retired, they’re not as available as they used to be.

So Connelly said he and his childhood buds started talking again and started a walking club to stay in touch.

Connelly said he and his childhood best friends started up again right where they left off, though the conversation topics have changed a bit.

“We walk slow, we complain, we talk about sports, we talk about the weather – I mean it’s no different than when we were in high school, talking about everything,” he said. “Sports, politics, our lives... the only thing that’s really changed is we used to talk about girls and parties, but now we talk about prostates and social security!”

When it comes to sports, Connelly said they’re excited about football starting up again.

“I mean the Sox have at least given us something to talk about, and the Patriots are around the corner,” he said. “The great thing is a lot of us originally connected through sports; we played little league together, we played high school sports together, and it’s been sort of a common thread woven through our 60 years together. It’s a nice topic to discuss about what’s going on and it opens us up to so many things.”

For six years they’ve been walking and nobody made a film about it. But Connelly said the film’s origin story all goes back to Ireland – literally, literarily, and figuratively.

“Maybe it’s the Irish in me. I feel like I’m a bit of a storyteller, and the book was the mode I’ve used for the last 20-plus years,” he said. “I’ve written six books, mostly about sports and society and how they parallel each other.”

Those stories dealt mostly with Boston, touching on everything from Ted Williams to the busing crisis.

“Three of those books were made into documentaries, and that gave me the bug and introduced me to a lot of people in that industry,” he said. “Our group has evolved to the point where we took a trip to Ireland together. We hiked Kirkpatrick Mountain, and while we were there, we gave one of the guys – the one who’s pretty tech savvy – we’d give him all our pictures from the day and he’d put a video together.”

Connelly said it was at that point they all thought this could make a movie.

“I mean, do you think our story of being regular guys seeking connection in a disconnected world would be interesting to people?” he said. “Maybe. Maybe we could convince people to reach out to old friends, old family members, old coworkers, and get the value of being connected that we did at this stage of our lives.”

Connelly said for them, it had been a long time since they all hung out. They were friends mostly as children and in high school, and hadn’t really talked. But the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic – along with the fact they had all started to retire – gave them the impetus to get out and do something.

“It makes you sort of contemplate, and at the same time we had COVID-19 going on,” he said. “So we’re stuck in the house, watching Netflix, and starting to get to the point where we’ve got to do something else or we’ll go crazy. So why not reach out to old friends and see if we could do a Zoom call?”

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Suffice to say, making that kind of connection proved difficult.

“Nobody knew what they were doing, we had the mute buttons and the hold thing and we just said, ‘You know what? Us guys aren’t made for this new technology, let’s get together for a walk,’” he said. “We’re not walkers by nature, but we went out that Sunday and now it’s going on six or seven years, and we’ve walked every Sunday pretty much since then.”

The film premieres at the Dedham Community Theatre on Sept. 20 at 4:30 p.m., with another showing at 7 p.m.

“It’s pretty cool for a bunch of regular guys whose film skills mostly involved being wicked good at the clicker,” he said.

And so Connelly said they had to put a team together of people who knew about film.

“That included our directory of photography Tom Fahey, who worked for 60 Minutes and CBS and a local guy – the story resonated with him,” he said. “He said, ‘I know exactly what you’re talking about, I’d love to be a part of this project,’ and he gave us a lot of legitimacy. He’s a professional photographer with a lot of connections.”

Now that he had someone to take the video, Connelly needed someone to put it all together into a coherent narrative.

“So I reached out to all the editors who worked on the national documentaries that my books were involved with, and we got to some people and we found a woman called Patty Sunshine,” he said. “She’s like a Dr. Frankenstein. She’s able to see things others don’t see. Before you knew it, we had footage, a person piecing it together, and it came together in a year. We started in Ireland with iPhones and now we have a film that is being well-recieved enough to be a part of the Boston Film Festival and the Chagrin Film Festival (a documentary festival in Chagrin, Ohio).”

The film covers the group’s connections, but also its walking locations, which include Millennium Park in West Roxbury, Castle Island in Southie, Pope John Paul Park in Dorchester, Hull Beach, the Blue Hills and more.

“We try to spice it up a bit to keep it interesting,” he said. “All of us were born in West Roxbury, but I’m the only one left in West Roxbury. So we’ve got people coming from different locales, and we try to keep it a little bit of a central spot for them.”

Connelly said three members of the group originally met at the Joyce Kilmer Elementary School for kindergarten in the 60s, some at Parkway Little League, some at St. Theresa’s School, and then later three played on the Catholic Memorial Baseball Team.

Connelly said the walks are great exercise, the reminiscing is important, and the movie is a great time. He believes the most important thing is to have a connection to people you really trust and can lean on, if you need it.

“Here we are in our 60s going through some different stages in our lives, and it’s so helpful to have people experiencing things like prostate exams, or when do I take social security, when should I retire; all these things are going on,” he said. “If you were to break up our lives into four sections, we’re in the fourth section right now. So we’re vulnerable, but this connection has allowed us to be vulnerable. To ask questions, to know that you don’t have all the answers and to ask five other guys ‘Hey, what do you think?’ and get their perspectives. It’s tough for us to do, but we’ve found it’s been invaluable to us, to lean on each other. And to just get out and get a little exercise at the same time.”

For tickets, go to https://gvimes.link/oldmnwlkng

To see the trailer for the film, go to https://gvimes.link/oldmntrlr