christ was black?

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 1999)

as much as i enjoyed the acting in this movie (hanks and duncan are both worthy of oscar nominations) the storyline and character profiles are, awkwardly, biblical. i think it was the second time john said his name that i thought about steinbeck's "grapes of wrath". in that novel, one of the main characters has the initials JC and comes across as a christ-like, literary character. very similarly, king has intentionally or unintentionally done the same thing. john's character is strikingly christ-like, from his magical healing powers on down to his initials. then of course you have paul. in THE GREEN MILE paul resembles the paul of the new testament in the sense that he upholds certain family and ethical values and, after john reveal's his powers to him, wants to spread john's "light" to those who need it. with this in mind, the film's story is very much unoriginal and frankly a finely-acted, well-scripted, new testament bible story.