The Green Mile (1999)
Directed by Frank Darabont
A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.
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13 films that influenced The Green Mile
What critics say influenced The Green Mile
Coffey is the virtuous innocent -- like a less hapless Lenny from "Of Mice and Men" with a few extra IQ points.
Like Lenny in Of Mice And Men, Duncan's character, John Coffey, is a simple-minded giant who is gentle as a lamb, afraid of the dark, and occasionally bursts into tears.
"The Green Mile" reminds one of John Steinbeck's classic story "Of Mice and Men" because of its theme and the illiterate giant at its center.
The film reminds me of the Dorothy McGuire character and her socialite circle in Gentleman's Agreement, whose subliminal anti-Semitism, that film made clear, was no less injurious or excusable merely for being subliminal, for failing even to recognize itself as a form of prejudice.
The unnecessary flashback device ups the schmaltz factor?it's a copy of similar devices in Saving Private Ryan and Cinema Paradiso, which set the standard for schmaltzy flashback devices.
There's a fine ensemble cast of Bonnie Hunt (of "Jerry McGuire") who plays Edgecomb's wife, Jan Edgecomb; David Morse (of "The Negotiator") who plays guard Brutus Howell; James Cromwell of "L.A. Confidential", who plays the warden; Michael Jeter (of "Patch Adams"), who plays prisoner Eduard Delacroix; Doug Hutchison (of "Batman and Robin"), who plays the nasty little guard Percy Wetmore.
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With Edgecombe serving as a less-than-engrossing narrator, it's too easy to notice the aforementioned operatic qualities: tearful goodbyes, battles between good and evil, more exploding light bulbs than any film since The Natural.
It's been a while since I've been this emotionally connected to a film and its characters, the last time being in 1997 with Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter."
Given that what Pynchon is to crafting narrative symbolism King is to banging on an Olivetti, an observer can only marvel that one man--filmmaker Frank Darabont--has inflicted this anguish on himself not only once, with the success d'estime "The Shawshank Redemption," but now twice, with the similarly successful "The Green Mile," like the former a prison movie, and like the former from Castle Rock.
What the film is trying to say after it spends so much time on the pedestrian lives of the prison workers and those who are prisoners is difficult to say, because the director, Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption), really never came to the point he wants to make.
Darabont's smashing success directing Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman as resilient lifers in "The Shawshank Redemption" marked the first time King's sentimental sweep, leisurely pace and grandiose symbolism had really made it from page to screen intact.
From director Frank Darabont, the man behind another prison drama adaptation called "The Shawshank Redemption" (which is, ironically, also written by King), here is a project not that far-stretched from the territory previously explored by the man behind the camera.
Director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) adapted a serial novel by Stephen King; with Michael Clarke Duncan and Tom Hanks.
Aside from the 3-hour-plus running time, "The Green Mile" occasionally bears a slight resemblance to 1997's "Titanic," particularly in the wraparound story in which we meet a very old man named Paul Edgecomb (Dabbs Greer), who lives at a nursing home and breaks down crying one afternoon when he happens to see Fred Astaire singing "Cheek to Cheek" in an old movie.
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One of the film's minor flaws may be in its portrayal of the villains embodied by Sam Rockwell ("Safe Men," "Lawn Dogs") and Doug Hutchison ("A Time to Kill," a recurring character on TV's "The X- Files").
Carrying this role is Doug Hutchison, who specializes in portraying people we love to hate -- past roles include a redneck rapist in "A Time To Kill" and a liver-eating mutant on "The X-Files."
As for the horror-meister's lone foray into directing his own work, the 1986 truck-monster saga "Maximum Overdrive," the less said the better.
It's not news to anyone that Steven King screen adaptations get tossed into two categories: absolute crap (Maximum Overdrive, Cujo, Pet Cemetery, et.