long superficial tale

Rating: Null/10 (14 July 2000)

`The Green Mile,' since it is based on a Stephen King novel, emerges as a death row prison story with a sci-fi twist. Chances are the viewer will either be swept up in this tale of life, death and spiritual renewal involving a group of characters working and languishing in a 1930's prison cell block - or dismiss it as a prime example of sentimental hooey. Like the similar (and similarly overrated) Stephen King-inspired prison epic, `The Shawshank Redemption,' this new film provides far too sanitary and romanticized a vision of prison life to be either entirely convincing or particularly meaningful. Indeed, `The Green Mile' goes a step further into the realm of parable by ascribing to one of its main characters the power of miraculous healing. Unfortunately, however, a parable is, almost by definition, supposed to be short, pithy and to the point. The story here - which runs a presumptuous 3 hours and 8 minutes - is so overstuffed with subplots and subsidiary characters that it actually works to weaken the emotional effect generated by the plight facing John Coffey, the innocent messenger from God condemned to death, and Paul, the prison guard assigned to run the death row cell block, who comes to learn of Coffey's innocence.
`The Green Mile' certainly has its heart in the right place, but it divides its world too evenly up into good guys and bad guys. Perhaps the decision to cast Tom Hanks in the leading role of Paul accounts for the fact that the character seems far too genial, soft-spoken and humanistic to be a man dedicating his life to dispatching convicted murderers to their just (or unjust) rewards. Coffey, a mountain of a man in the form of actor Michael Clarke Duncan, ranks as the oldest cliché of all: an uneducated, marginally imbecilic lug of a guy whose innocent, childlike heart and mind, though trapped inside a behemoth's body, provide the clean vessel through which God is able to work his wonders. Except for this last fact, Coffey's pedigree descends from a whole multitude of earlier characters, including Lennie in `Of Mice and Men' and even Frankenstein's monster. Is this possibly why `The Green Mile,' in deference to the former character, features a mouse in a prominent role? Similarly, one doubts it is mere coincidence that the crime for which Coffey is convicted is that of raping and murdering two little girls, an echo of Frankenstein - albeit, in this case, Coffey, of course, is innocent; after all, having him be guilty of the brutal murders would muddy up the moral waters and make it a lot harder to elicit tears from a sentimental, happily rheumy-eyed audience. Also, this allows the authors to pound home the Christ figure qualities of Coffey (John Coffey - JC - get it?) to an unsubtle fare-thee-well. In addition to dying innocently for another's sins, Coffey gets to heal the sick and smite the evildoers (the latter, more in keeping with Jehovah perhaps than with Christ per se).
Nor are the filmmakers much more successful with their villains. Amidst all this amazing good will between condemned killers and supportive prison guards, there has to be some vinegar to cut the sweetness. This comes in the form of a too neatly balanced duo, one a guard, the other a far-from-model prisoner. The guard, Percy, is a craven, sadistic coward who delights in antagonizing the prisoners, taunting and torturing the men at the moment of execution and, most monstrously of all to the animal lovers in the audience, squashing a pet mouse on the eve of its owner's death. The evil prisoner, Wild Bill, provides a similar two-dimensional quality to his wickedness, serving as a too-obvious foil for the other pure-as-the-driven-snow condemned men. By so neatly divvying up the characters into clearly delineated categories of good and evil, the filmmakers rob their film of the moral complexity that might have lent it some real meaning.
As to the film's rather startling and, initially unexpected, flights into fantasy, they serve mostly to further soften the edge of this already overly idealistic and mawkish story.
`The Green Mile' is certainly not a `bad' film. It sports a number of excellent performances, generates some moments of genuine emotional power and, though languorous at times in its pacing, admirably refuses to hurtle ahead as it patiently gathers the strands of its story together. As with a good long novel, one approaches it with a sense of patience and goodwill. We want to give it the benefit of our attention. Therefore, we regret even more that the makers of the film too often settle for the easy path of cheap emotionalism and simpleminded sentimentality. Those of us willing to dedicate more than three precious hours to this particular cause deserve better.