In the latest attempt to bring Stephen King to the screen, director Frank Darabont shows us just how important the editing phase of movie production is with this three hour drama. Tom Hanks and a strong supporting cast are prison guards on a death row cellblock who are faced with a prisoner that appears to be a miracle of God -a man with healing powers. That man, played by Michael Duncan Clarke, has been sentenced to death, however, for a murder that he did not commit. Undoubtedly some Oscar nominations will come out of this one and the story had some good moments, but it just was not worthy of that running time. This is a small, simple story that could have -should have- been told in two hours and then would have been much better. Instead, you get three hours of mediocrity. Shame on Darabont for not only making the movie too long but for also making a movie that lacked any real style. A pause button certainly would come in handy on this one.

Although this film is three hours long, it kept my interest from beginning to surprising end. Writer/Director Frank Darabont("The Shawshank Redemption,") is too smart a man not to have deliberately chosen to tell this story in a slow and ponderous way; it reflects the life of the inmates on death row in this southern penitentiary in the 30's. I, for one, would hate to have to be the one who decides what should be edited out of this film. One wise critic said"...it's almost a rebuke to the MTV generation. Sit still for this, it says." Just remember that this was taken from a serialized Stephen King novel(although the movie is MUCH better than the book,) and so there are strange, supernatural, miraculous things happening on the "green mile"(death row.) If I have one complaint about the film, it's that, although the prison guards are not written as dim-witted dolts, they often do extremely stupid things! However, these stupid things DO advance the plot. I'm nit-picking now...the film is excellent.