Film lacks "edge", length deters from success

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 1999)

The Green Mile was visually impressive. The story, though I have not read the novel, was quite compelling. However, good cinematography and a great story do not always make for a great film. The Green Mile lacked the... "edge" we saw in The Shawshank Redemption or in movies such as Shakespeare in Love or, for you Tom Hanks fans, Forest Gump.
The development of The Shawshank Redemption was brilliant. It seemed as if every scene had at least two purposes: the scenes developed the story as well as the characters. The audience was constantly thinking. In The Green Mile, it seemed that each sequence had either one purpose or the other. This contributed to the length of the film. The audience can't help to wait for the end of one predictable scene after another.
While trudging through The Green Mile, I couldn't help but suspect that if a little more time had gone into the preproduction and a more compact, while more meaningful, screen play had been written, the film would have lived up to its full potential.