The Green Mile, a comment on the film.

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 2008)

"The Green mile" is a cell block for death row inmates, named such because the floor was the color of faded limes. It's the setting of the story of John Coffey, an innocent angel, come to us as a very large, imposing black man with a shy, child like personality, who is wrongly accused of murdering two little girls and sent off to be executed on death row.
With Coffey's power to 'take things back' or heal living things, Coffey tried to save two dying little girls, who were beyond help when he came upon them. Coffey ended up being accused of their murder by an unknowing, angry mob.
The girls were murdered by Billy the Kid, who worked as a laborer for the father of the girls for a brief spell before ending up as another inmate on the Green Mile, for another, equally heinous crime of murdering a pregnant woman and her family.
Billy the Kid is a force of wickedness, counter to Jon Coffey in the world.
On the Mile, there are some interesting characters, like Delacroix, an inmate that befriends a mouse, who accidentally stumbles on the fountain of youth, via John Coffey. There is the child of privilege, in the evil Percy Whitmore, a prison guard who stands as a contrast to the lead characters of higher moral esteem.
Brutus Howell (David Morse) and Boss Paul Edgecomb(Tom Hanks) play two guards at the prison. They are regular guys who have an almost cold sense of decency...which make them the perfect vehicle for the viewer to see the story through. The relationship between Hanks and Duncan is like, 'man meets angel.'
'There are good people in this bad world'...is the thought I walked away thinking after seeing this charming, funny and sometimes painful, yet beautiful film, for like, the 6th time since its release in 1999.
Fantastic spiritual journey this movie is. Mystical, sad, funny, joyful, evil, the whole ball of wax wrapped up in a three hour film worthy of discussion among all those who seek truth or just speculate on what constitutes our human notions of our values.
There is another movie called "Defending Your Life," (with Meryll Streep and Albert Brooks) where the premise was that when you die, you go to a way station, where it is decided whether you 'move forward' or go 'back' based on whether you rose above fear in your life. If you were fearless and good, you moved forward. If your life was dictated by fear, you went back and tried it again on Earth.
Interestingly, Jon Coffey was afraid of the dark.