Director: Frank Darabont
Genre: Crime, Drama, Fantasy
Rating: B
Even after having seen this a couple times I’m still not exactly sure
what my opinion of The Green Mile is. In some ways it’s rather extraordinary and
well done; it has an amazing cast, an interesting premise, a good script, and
that interesting mix of blatant fiction and real believability that can only be
achieved by really good fantasy and science fiction. On the other hand, however, the characters themselves
are a bit flat and stereotypical and the story itself rather simplistic. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the story
itself is clichéd, but the characters are definitely ones that we already know,
with each kind of filling some type of archetype.
Paul Edgecomb (Hanks) is the corrections officer in charge of death
row inmates at Cold Mountain Penitentiary, also known as “the Green Mile.” Near the start of the film John Coffey
(Duncan) arrives on the Mile, having been convicted of raping and killing two
young girls. With him on death row are Eduard
“Del” Delacroix (Michael Jeter) and “Wild Bill” Wharton (Sam Rockwell); both
John and Del come across as being good guys with some sort of cognitive or
learning disability while Wild Bill is just your typical criminal asshole. Acting as an antagonist to both the inmates
and his fellow corrections officers is Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), the
nephew of the governor’s wife and a sadistic asshole. The Mile is also graced
by the presence of the tame mouse, Mr. Jingles, who eventually becomes the pet
of Del. Oh, and John reveals that he has
the power to heal people with his touch.
That’s kind of important to the plot.
The best place to start with praising this movie is the casting. Everyone in The Green Mile does pretty much exactly what they’re needed to do,
be it making you feel sad or scared or what not. While some of the films that the actors have
done may not be exactly good, in The
Green Mile they each appear to bring out their best. I really liked how they all had accents that
(to a non-southerner at least) really seemed to fit with the general setting
and time of the film. My biggest praise,
however, has to go to Duncan himself whose portrayal of John Coffey is
absolutely amazing. He’s more than just
this gentle giant, although the subtly with which that more is portrayed is hard
to describe. This role is something that
amazed me about Duncan, and the way that he presented himself is one that I’ve
never really seen him recreate. While I’ve
loved watching Duncan in other roles, I wish he had done more movies like this.
That having been said, though, John Coffey himself is a huge
stereotype. I mean, seriously, gentle
giant? Black guy who’s not really all that bright? Black guy with magical powers? His isn’t the only stereotype either; there
really isn’t a lot done to develop any of the characters beyond the archetypes
that they fit in. The good guys are good
simply because they’re good, the bad guys are assholes because they’re
assholes. There’s no real reason as to
why they are the way that they are. You can just get this sense throughout the
film that the plot is a simplified version of something else – either some
greater plot that was the book version or else a greater idea that the original
writer never put to pen (and knowing that the book was written by Stephen King,
I strongly suspect that the err was the result of the former). There’s magic in the movie, but not really behind
the story.
