Cheap The Green Mile (DVD) (Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan) (Frank Darabont) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Green Mile

But it's this calculated "We're making a Great, Important Film" attitude that really hamstrings "The Green Mile", a good film that could have been far better with less liberal doses of gravitas.

This isn't to say that "The Green Mile" doesn't have its strong points; it's beautifully made, well acted, and does have some wonderful moments.

To begin with, the cast is excellent. Tom Hanks turns in another wonderful everyman performance as prison death row guard Paul Edgecombe, who tries to let his charges live with as much dignity and respect as a person waiting for his turn in the electric chair can.

The rest of the actors portraying Edgecombe's crew are also fine, but Doug Hutchinson stands out as the smarmy, abusive Percy Wetmore, a man who most assuredly gets what he deserves. Harry Dean Stanton has a great turn as Toot Toot, a old-timer con who helps Edgecombe's crew rehearse executions. ("I'm fryin! I'm a done tom turkey!" he exclaims from the electric chair, as Edgecombe pretends to turn on the juice.)

Frank Darabont's direction is suave and self-assured; like his previous film, "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Green Mile" portrays prison life with just the right amount of depressing reality and everyday humanity. And though "The Green Mile" is too long, you have to hand it to Darabont for making the film long enough for its various characters and storylines to flesh themselves out; too bad he spent too much time focusing on Mr. Jingles, the prison's resident circus mouse.

The problems with "The Green Mile" start with Mr. Jingles and John Coffey, a huge, powerful, but barely coherent man who lands in Edgecombe's care for killing and molesting two young girls. As time goes on, it becomes apparent that John Coffey has magical healing powers (check the initials); he heals Edgecombe's urinary infection and the warden's brain tumor, and even fixes Mr. Jingles after Percy crushes him. The plot centers around Edgecombe's growing certainty that Coffey couldn't possibly be guilty of the heinous crime that landed him on death row; the Big Question - whether they can execute this guy or not - is the other plot center.

Michael Clarke Duncan plays Coffey as a virtual mountain of pain, and the pain shows through in every shot. Problem is, there's not much more to Coffey than pain, and that's a major failing of the film, and of Duncan's performance. Perhaps the original point of the Coffey character was to show a man who simply wanted to die, but Coffey is so depressing and one-dimensional, and dominates so many scenes, that I suspect a goodly part of the audience wanted to see him die after the first hour.

That brings us to the subject of length. The main criticism of "The Green Mile" is that it's too long, and I agree. Having said that, I don't mind long movies at all...as long as they give me fascinating characters and situations, and don't beat me about the head and face with how important they are. This is why other long movies like "The Godfather", "Titanic", or even "Boogie Nights" seem to fly by, while "The Green Mile" drags dutifully and laboriously onward.

Thankfully, Darabont wisely avoids the trap of talking too much about capital punishment; given the film's subject matter and a particularly brutal execution sequence, "The Green Mile" could have been an anti- (or pro-) execution manifesto. But given that that death by electric chair - a particularly grisly death AND topic if ever there was one - lurked behind every frame of this film, couldn't it have focused more on people and less on Big Themes like the Messianic Man Who Must Die?

Darabont's mistake wasn't making "The Green Mile" too long; it was filling "The Green Mile" with so much fluff (like the mouse), self-importance, and Great Cinema flourishes that the movie sagged under the weight of its own inflated self-expectations. That's sad, because "The Green Mile" could have been a lean, mean, prison fable that really would have walked off with a zillion Oscars.

Highly dramatic, fully emotional, absolutely faithful.
Paul Edgecomb, head prison guard in the death-row cellblock of the Cold Mountain Penitentiary, didn't believe in miracles until a humongous inmate with a humongous heart walks down what is known as The Green Mile to his cell. John Coffey is a black man convicted of killing two small girls, though it seems strange to Edgecomb as well as everyone else that he could be capable of such a ghastly crime. From this point on, strange things begin happening, things that benefit those in trouble or in pain. It is soon revealed that John Coffey has a gift for healing those in pain, whether physical or emotional, and this revelation leads to an unexpected discovery about the truth about the facts of the crime, and a twist that will leave you breathless.

From the director of "The Shawshank Redemption" comes "The Green Mile," a highly emotional and moving epic film that takes us back to a place in time where racial inequality affected every aspect of American government and life. Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecomb, the prison guard whose intrigue for John Coffey's past leads him to learn of his extraordinary power to heal those in pain. Michael Clarke Duncan gives an uncanny performance as the extremely friendly and soft-hearted John Coffey, whose bitterness and anger aim only at the injustice and prejudices of the world outside. Everything in this movie is perfectly rounded, created so that in the end, everything ties up together in a glorious package of revelations and truths about life. On another high note, the film remains ever-so true to the novel, remaining one of the finer book-to-film adaptations ever created.

The DVD edition of the film is nicely rendered, with crisp images and superbly enveloping sound that immerses the viewer in the heart of the story. This film will remain one of the best films ever made in history, and is, by far, one of the greatest achievements for all those involved in its making.

Touching story, beautiful acting.
The other fantastic prison movie. (The first one being The Shawshank Redemption). This one is a little more magical and very touching. Do not miss it!