*** out of ****
Year: 1999 Starring Tom Hanks, David Morse, Bonnie Hunt, Michael Clarke Duncan, James Cromwell, Michael Jeter, Graham Greene, Doug Hutchison, Sam Rockwell, Barry Pepper, Patricia Clarkson, Harry Dean Stanton Screenplay by Frank Darabont Directed by Frank Darabont Rated R
What is it about Frank Darabont and prison films based on Stephen King novels? His "Shawshank Redemption," based on a King novella and taking place in a prison setting, collected several Oscar nominations in 1994 (including Best Picture), and has since become a major fan-favorite, constantly ranking high on Internet movie polls. "The Green Mile," also set in a prison and based on a series of books written by King, is Darabont's latest effort. Just in time for the Christmas season, the writer-director delivers what audiences are often looking for at this time of year: a weepy drama that packs an emotional punch and preaches a humanist message. "The Green Mile," though by no means a perfect film, succeeds on both levels.
Two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks stars as Paul Edgecomb, a prison guard in charge of death row, otherwise known as "the green mile" because of its linoleum-tile floor. A new prisoner catches his eye: John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a massive black man convicted of raping and murdering two young girls. To Edgecomb and the other guards (David Morse, Barry Pepper, Jeffrey DeMunn), Coffey seems exactly the opposite from his profile. Though large, he is a gentle giant who loves animals and is afraid of the dark. Edgecomb suspects Coffey may have been unjustly convicted, and his suspicions are raised even more when the prisoner begins exhibiting a strange supernatural power: the power to heal people. Other characters in this colorful group include Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), a stuck-up sadistic guard who only has his job because he's related to the governor, and the other prisoners, which include Arlen Bitterbuck (Graham Greene), a quiet Native American; "Wild" Bill Wharton (Sam Rockwell), an insane serial killer; and Eduard Delacroix (Michael Jeter), a Cajun who takes a mouse living in the block for a pet. The mouse, called Mr. Jingles, provides a source of amusement for the guards and inmates, save for Percy, who has been frustrated in his attempts to catch the mouse.
The strong suit of "The Green Mile" is the acting. Tom Hanks, excellent as usual, takes another step towards his evident goal of becoming this generation's Jimmy Stewart, with a sympathetic, human performance. He's surrounded by a fine supporting cast, most notably Michael Duncan as John Coffey and David Morse as Edgecomb's right-hand man "Brutal" Howell. Each would be a fine choice for a Supporting Actor nomination. The characters remain somewhat sketchy, this being a narrative-oriented fable, but Duncan and Morse manage to find some underlying humanity underneath what the script gives them. The story also contains villains, with Doug Hutchison having a great deal of fun as Percy, the world's biggest cad, and Sam Rockwell hamming it up as the psychotic Wild Bill. Do they resemble real people? No, but they still serve their purpose: to give the audience someone to root against. In Percy's case, this shouldn't be a problem. Some well-known actors show up in relatively small roles, such as James Cromwell (whose part probably should have been larger) as Warden Hal Moores, Gary Sinise in exactly one scene (a good one) as Coffey's lawyer, and Bonnie Hunt as Edgecomb's supportive wife Jan. This film is lifted by all-around good performances, one of the finest casts that could have been assembled.
Darabont's direction seems to exist in sharp contrast to the modern quick-cut, moving-camera style so common to young directors. He engages in elegant, throwback storytelling, in which he holds back most of the time and pulls out all the stops for the big emotional climaxes, of which "The Green Mile" has many, most resulting from Coffey's supernatural gifts. Darabont swells the music, utilizes close-ups of his actors' faces, and plays the audience's emotions like a drum. Of course, it's not as though the audience will complain much about this sort of thing, being that it's what we expect at this time of year. "The Green Mile" is a melodrama, a bit hokey, but still effective. The film is lengthy, at over three hours of running time, but strangely refuses to drag. It moves fairly quickly, leaving me hard-pressed to come up with a way Darabont could have edited it without damaging the narrative, save for one: the elderly bookends, in which an aged Paul Edgecomb narrates the script's main story, are fairly unnecessary, with the closing one providing not only a major anticlimax, but a seeming contradiction to the film's original message. It's a similar problem to those that marred two other highly-touted "epic" films of the past two years, "Titanic" and "Saving Private Ryan." I'm still unclear as to why filmmakers feel the need to include these devices. They don't add much to the story, and merely cause the audience to leave on a bit of a let-down, dragging on after the primary narrative has already run its course.
Other than the unnecessary bookends, the only other thing "The Green Mile" suffers from is being overly familiar. If you've ever read a fairy tale, you 'll know exactly what's going to happen when credits roll. The good guys will come out on top, and the bad guys will get their just desserts. Furthermore, the script contains several plot contrivances that, while not major atrocities, do tend to get bothersome after a while. Case in point: when the real identity of a particular inmate is revealed near the end of the film, it seems a little too coincidental to believe. Contrivances aside, this film doesn't claim to be an exact representation of real life. (How could it be, with so many non-racist white guards and a major supernatural element?) It's a fable, and an effective one. The emotional climaxes hit like a ton of bricks, and I must admit that I even got choked up a few times.
"The Green Mile" is certainly not a perfect film, and probably not the major Oscar contender the filmmakers intended it to be, but it is a well-acted, tautly-directed film with emotional weight. It's schmaltzier elements (like the affectionately cute Mr. Jingles) actually seem in place. You won't receive any great revelations about the human condition from this movie, and it's not remotely realistic, but with so many things going for it, it's not hard to overlook such flaws and see the film for what it is: a story very well told.
-reviewed by Shay Casey
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