THE GREEN MILE RATING: 4 /10 --> This movie sucks
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Five years after his directorial debut based on Stephen King's writings called THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (9/10), writer/director Frank Darabont returns to the big screen with another prison film based on the famous scribblings of Stephen King. Unlike the latter film, this one is a big, long, laborious bore.
PLOT: A seven-foot death row inmate is discovered to have secret healing powers.
CRITIQUE: This film is slow, drawn-out, boring, uninteresting, unexciting, predictable and topped with a couple of one-dimensional "evil" characters. Its only positive attribute lies in its actors who all do credible jobs and its message of hope and belief in miracles. The real miracle of my night was the fact that I did not fall asleep during this straightforward, unimpressive film about a guy with special powers who we never truly understand or care about. Of course, much like all other death row cell blocks, this one is filled with decent inmates who all happen to be "misunderstood", except for one cookie-cutter crazy guy who is evil personified. And let's not forget all the guards on death row, who also happen to be angels from the Heaven above, except for one cookie-cutter crazy guard who is also evil personified (and is there any reason why there are about six guards when there appears to be no more than three inmates???). Am I supposed to identify with anyone in this film? Or even more importantly, am I supposed to give a rat's ass about anyone in this film? Well, if I was, I sure missed that boat, because the only thing that I ended up caring about during this entire picture was the obscene amount of fat that Tom Hanks has been able to burrow under his loose chin.
Furthermore, there is absolutely no reason in the world why director Frank
Darabont needed to take three hours and ten minutes out of anyone's life to
present this story. In fact, the story is empty within itself. I truly did
not get anything out of the film other than the fact that there is a guy on
death row who has special powers to heal, and we are left wondering if he
should still be executed or not. Wow. How interesting
Review Date: December 10, 1999 Director: Frank Darabont Writer: Frank Darabont Producers: Frank Darabont and David Valdes Actors: Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecomb David Morse as Brutus Howell Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey Genre: Drama Year of Release: 1999 --------------------------------------- JoBlo's Movie Emporium http://www.joblo.com --------------------------------------- (c) 1999 Berge Garabedian
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