The Green Mile
I forgot about how old-fashioned “The Green Mile” is. Adapted from the serial novel by Stephen King by writer-director Frank Darabont, this prison drama takes new age supernatural ideas and puts them in a story of a man on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. For a more thoughtful look at the justness of the death penalty, there will always be Tim Robbins’s “Dead Man Walking,” but if you’re looking for something a bit more on the entertaining side, “The Green Mile” definitely marks similar boxes.
After the job he did with “The Shawshank Redemption” in 1994, which was nominated for 7 Oscars, and later revealed itself as a beloved film, the prospect of Darabont adapting King’s writing was something audiences could not pass up, so following that film with the 6-book serial, also set in a prison, feels a bit on the nose, as well as a natural convergence, with the casting of Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecomb, whom is in charge of Death Row in this Depression-era prison, only adding fuel to the potential fire of this project. He returned to the King well later with “The Mist,” but that film’s bleak finale turned people off, and he hasn’t directed a feature since. I’m not going to lie- “The Green Mile” makes me miss Darabont as a filmmaker.
The story here begins with Paul as an old man, who lives in a retirement home and goes on walks. One day, one of the residents puts on an old movie, and Paul breaks down, and a friend goes to console him. He begins to set the stage, and we see Paul as a young man, working on Death Row in 1935 with his fellow prison guards, Brutus (David Morse), Dean (Barry Peppers), Harry (Jeffrey DeMunn) and Percy (Doug Hutchison). They have a couple of prisoners on the Row in Arlen Bitterbuck (Graham Greene) and Eduard Delacroix (Michael Jeter), and they are set to get a new one in the hulking John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), whom has been sentenced to die for killing two little white girls. He was found with the bodies in his arms, so it seems like an open-and-shut case, but events that Paul witnesses makes you think otherwise.
This movie feels very predictable in how it goes about its business, and in its structure, but to its credit, it also feels very emotional without getting mawkishly sentimental. Its 3-hour running time is a bit much, but there’s honestly not a lot I can imagine excising from the film. It has a rock-solid three-act structure that reaches emotional and narrative climaxes that ultimately lead to the point at the end of the film where John Coffey meets his fate, and it has pushed the buttons along the way so effectively that when the film’s climax comes, we are a wreck. Where the film goes after that ruins that feeling, but honestly, it plays into the questions about life and death, and our responsibility in respecting both, so I cannot complain too terribly much. While the “old man” bookends still reek of “Saving Private Ryan” and “Titanic” copycats, what it reveals about Paul interesting enough to justify their inclusion.
Darabont has crafted a wonderful piece of entertainment that can speak to many people in many different ways, and it is superbly crafted, with the period production design and costumes being seen through David Tattersall’s cinematography with an elegant beauty that is matched with Thomas Newman’s score, which really is a good example of what Newman is capable of when he’s scoring something special. What brings the emotions home in the film, however, is the cast, led by Hanks and Clarke Duncan (who is heartbreaking), and including fantastic supporting work by Morse, Jeter, Hutchison and Harry Dean Stanton as someone whom helps the men practice the executions, which sets up one of the most upsetting images in any film when one goes horribly wrong. The reason “The Green Mile” still maintains a hold is because it boils down to issues of how, even faced with the prospect of death, life must be respected in order to respect the taking of a life from someone, even if their actions deserve it. The film may deal in cliches and archetypes, but when it lands its emotional punches, it’s hard to underestimate how well it does it.
