Tom Hanks, David Morse, Michael Clarke Duncan and Doug Hutchison
The Green Mile Sounds Like Such a Happy Place
This year's crop of Holiday movies have some large shoes to fill. Not only did last year's Oscar Winning (and "Mikey" Nominee) Best Picture Shakespeare in Love but there were also huge successes like Stepmom and Patch Adams (just to name a few) that came out during the 1998 Holiday season. This year, the only real major "Holiday" release to come out (besides the family film Stuart Little) is The Green Mile. With the same writer (Stephen King) and director (Frank Darabont) as The Shawshank Redemption, this looked to be another great prison movie. However, if you expected this to be like Shawshank (like I did), then you are going to be disappointed (like I was). The Green Mile is a very good movie, with very good acting and a good story... but it is a completely different type of movie than that earlier prison movie.
Paul Edgecome (Tom Hanks) is the head guard on "The Green Mile"
At first, Paul Edgecome (Dabbs Greer, Con Air) just seems like a cooky old man in his nursing home. He wanders around every day, and is notorious for escaping the home every day to walk around in the woods and hills in the area. Eventually he begins to tell a story to one of his friends about his time working as a security guard on Death Row in Southern Prison. Many prisons of the time called their Death Rows "The Last Mile," but because of its forrest green tiled floor, the guards called this Death Row "The Green Mile." The younger Paul Edgecome (Tom Hanks, Toy Story 2, Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, et al) is the head guard on The Green Mile, and is also suffering from a bad case of a urinary tract infection. On this particular day a new condemned inmate is coming in by the name of John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan, Armageddon, Bulworth). Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but John Coffey is one of the biggest men you will ever see. He is seven feet tall and weighs 315 pounds if he's an ounce. The guards were worried about John until they realized he was mentally retarded and as tame as a domesticated kitten. In fact, John has a power to heal people's injuries, or even bring something back from the dead. First John heals Paul's urinary infection, then he brings the pet mouse of Eduard "Del" Delacroix (Michael Jeter, Patch Adams, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) back from the dead. Paul and one of his fellow guards Brutus Howell (David Morse, Contact, The Rock) become convinced that John did not commit the murders of which he is accused, but was trying to save the victims after their attack.
Michael Clarke Duncan as the enormous John Coffey
But the guilt of carrying out the death sentence on an innocent man isn't the only thing that Paul and Brutus has to worry about. They have a bunch of trouble with one of their fellow guards, Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison, Con Air, A Time To Kill). Percy is an obnoxious, power hungry little man who also happens to be the nephew of the governor... so not only is Percy disturbing the inmates just for fun, but they can't get rid of him. Whenever they think they have Percy under control, he does something to taunt the inmates, or even the other guards. Another new problem to come up is William "Wild Bill" Wharton (Sam Rockwell, A Midsummer Night's Dream), a crazy, violent new inmate who also gives them lots of problems. Eventually, through his God given abilities, John Coffey learns that Wild Bill was the proud killer of the two little girls that John was accused of murdering... and he passes this information along to Paul (also through his abilities) this information. So when Paul carries out John's sentence, he must live forever knowing that he "killed one of God's greatest creations."
Paul and his fellow guards (Barry Pepper and David Morse)
As I said before, I wasn't as hyped up on The Green Mile as a lot of people seem to be. I think part of the reason for that was I expected this prison movie to be like the last great prison movie, The Shawshank Redemption. This movie had just about eveything you could ask for in a good movie; good acting, good characters, some "bad guys" you can hate, and a good story. It even has the same basic type of setting with the same type of feeling as Shawshank, a drama set in a prison. But Shawshank is a little bit lighter with a lot more focus on the inmates whiling showing how corrupt and brutal the guards and warden can be, while The Green Mile tries to be a little bit deeper with a lot more focus on the guards while showing how evil some people can be and how the system can be completely wrong by sending innocent people to Death Row. The acting in The Green Mile is just as good as you would expect with some of the names attached to the picture (Tom Hanks, David Morse, James Cromwell and Bonnie Hunt) along with some surprising performances put in by some people you might not have expected or even heard of. A great example of this is Michael Clarke Duncan in the role of John Coffey. He did a great job playing this physically imposing man who is also gentle and simple. The two main "bad guys" also did a great job. Doug Hutchison made me hate the sadist Percy Wetmore and Sam Rockwell frightened me as the psychopathic William "Wild Bill" Wharton. The story is also good, although a little slow to develop (the movie is over three hours long). I can't explain why I didn't really like The Green Mile... and I am sure if I watched it again I would like it better, but there was something about it that just didn't strike me as great. But, I would recommend it as a good dramatic movie that makes you think and keeps you watching.
