Oscar? Ha!

Rating: 1/10 (18 December 1999)

If you go to see "The Green Mile," be prepared to laugh. A lot. And not because the film's intention is for the audience to laugh--it's just that bad. It has all the outward appearances of a very moving, emotionally charged film that will make you leave the theater saying "Wow." (The subject concerns Death Row inmates, Tom Hanks stars, and the director is of "The Shawshank Redemption" fame). But I just left the theater laughing, because the movie had become so predictable in its plot and dialogue that the woman behind me had begun to recite the lines along with the characters. (And the sad thing about THAT is that I saw it on opening night).
But its predictability is not even remotely one of "The Green Mile"'s major problems, and those are an overly corny, hokey story and script that are nearly impossible to buy (especially those particles that fly out of John Cofee's mouth whenever he performs a miracle--what is THAT?), acting ranging from mediocre to downright bad (no wonder John Cofee was given so few lines), and a complete inconsistency in tone. A movie about Death Row inmates should NOT cut from a scene of a man being executed (of which this movie shows about three) to a scene of the guards cooing over a cute little mouse (which appeared in the movie so much that the damn thing should've been named after the mouse). The execution scenes are of such a brutal nature that directly juxtaposing them with light-hearted prison follies completely degrades the seriousness of execution and is outright jolting for the audience.
"The Green Mile" left a bad taste in my mouth from its opening moments which never really left. Once I began to get a feel for how limited it was in hitting the real issue of the film, however, I was able to view it as one of those happy "drama-turned-comedy" accidents. I can only say that any recognition for "The Green Mile" for any more than it actually is--a piece of cheese that never deserved to see cinematic daylight--is a not-so-happy accident indeed.