The Green Mile

Starring Tom Hanks

To Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), the Green Mile is not death row; it's a state of being, a place of good feelings, where guards must be on their best behavior to help prisoners stay calm before their execution. To prisoners, it's the green stretch of floor that leads to the electric chair, where the waiting kills you more than the dying. This is the premise for the film, based on the pulp fiction story written by Stephen King of the same title.

Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecomb, a thirty year old man working as a security guard on death row during the Great Depression. Curiosity is aroused by the staff one day as a seven foot tall black man named John Coffey (played by Michael Duncan) is brought in on the charge of the brutal murder of two young girls. What surprises everyone is that this man is not a cruel Goliath, but a gentle giant with the mind of a child, who at all

inspection wouldn't hurt a living soul. With further investigation still pointing the crime to him, fighting off sympathy, Paul soon discovers that Coffey is a healer, with supernatural powers. Difficulties soon arise as Paul tries to use Coffey to help those in need, while trying to stop his execution. The issue is complicated by having to deal with the usual psychotic prisoners, including a sadistic prison guard.

Tom Hanks once again reasserts his acting abilities to the audience enough so that pairing the word fantastic to his name can only seem redundant. The rest of the cast works well as an ensemble, a testament to director Frank Darabont's natural talent with actors. The most eye-grabbing performance here, though, is by Michael Duncan as John Coffey. The sheer amount of emotional focus and sensitivity expressed at the precise moments

can bring the audience to tears, which is true talent, given his small amount of speaking lines.

Though Darabont is responsible for the Shawshank Redemption, another fine film, the two are completely different animals. The emotional conclusion is different in the films, due in part to a very low-key score by Thomas Newman rather than the truly inspiring cues he composed for Shawshank. The film is an all-around marvelous production, with attention given to every facet. The atmosphere of the period is felt in the characters,

locations and costumes. Credit goes to the meticulous effort of Darabont, whose script adaptation is one of the finest of the year, and whose sense of drama is impeccable. The film attempts to milk the most it can out of its actors, using the film's lengthy running time paired with the choice to shoot an inordinate amount of close-ups, to give emotional credibilty to the characters, so that when a true eruption of feeling is neccessary,

it doesn't seem forced.

One crucial element in the film that seemed to be problematic is the fact that Stephen King wrote the story in segments, which, when adapted faithfully, stretch the scenes to a point where length is an understatement. However, the script is so rich in characterization, one could only hope for more "episodes" with the actors. Another rather

touchy issue is the bookend-style prologue and epilogue scenes. The fact that another actor (Dabbs Greer), who did a fine job nonetheless, was chosen to play an older Paul Edgecomb rather than an makeup-aged Tom Hanks, undercuts the emotional trajectory of the film and clearly damages the segue into the epilogue. It's as if the film stop with Tom Hanks and continues with someone else. The epilogue itself is rather long, being

that the plot makes it neccesary to imply the passage of a long amount of time. All that aside, the film is one of the best of the year, an inspiring work of art.