The Green Mile (1999)

The Green Mile (1999)
 

7/10 

Starring

Tom Hanks
David Morse
Bonnie Hunt
Michael Clarke Duncan
James Cromwell

Directed by Frank Darabont

The Green Mile is based on a 1996 Stephen King novel of the same name. Done three years after the book release, The Green Mile was nominated for four Academy Awards, which included Best Supporting Actor for Michael Clarke Duncan, Best Picture, Best Sound, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The movie was directed by Frank Darabont, who also developed the screenplay in an eight-week period. An adapted screenplay that I have to commend as one of the best I’ve seen, but it lost at the Oscars to The Cider House Rules. Frank Darabont also directed the critically acclaimed The Shawshank Redemption, which earned him a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1994.

The high point of this movie will be the whole movie itself. I happen to have read the book before seeing the film, so watching a well-adapted novel on the silver screen made me feel like I was reading the book all over again.

The movie plot and the story itself are based on a flashback Paul Edgecomb was telling an old friend about his time as a prison officer in charge of death row inmates in Cold Mountain Penitentiary in 1935.

The cell block Paul (Tom Hanks) worked in was called the "Green Mile" because the condemned prisoners walking to their execution were said to be walking "the last mile". Here, it’s a stretch of faded lime-green linoleum. The other guards who were Paul’s friends in the movie were Brutus "Brutal" Howell (David Morse), Harry Terwilliger (Jeffrey DeMunn), and Dean Stanton (Barry Pepper).

In addition to the guards was Percy (Doug Hutchison), an arrogant misfit who took pride in terrorising the inmates.

Everything in the cell block was as usual until the guards got a visit from two inmates who changed their very view of life itself.

One of the inmates was John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a giant of a man who had some weird miraculous power, an ability to heal and feel the pain and sufferings of others. The other was "Wild Bill" Wharton (Sam Rockwell), who was a psycho, murderer, and paedophile.

Their arrival was plagued with chaos, miraculous healings, and with the addition of Percy it became a handful for the other guards. 

That said, the movie does have its downside. The plot comes off predictable and the way the things arrange themselves can be very convenient, and the main issue for me is the movie is very not even subtly emotionally manipulative.

The Green Mile is a movie I have seen over and over again, and I believe you will enjoy watching it too.