Wow! Darabont and King have done it again.

Rating: 10/10 (30 December 1999)

This is a very rich movie that takes its sweet time getting set up in its first half and then some gut wrenching and heart felt resolutions in its second half. HOWEVER the first hour and a half is sweet and very intriguing --it is not a waste of time. Just like The Shawshank Redemption, writer-director Frank Darabont has taken a Stephen King story set primarily in a prison and made it into a faithful and thrilling movie full of heart and soul. The Green Mile is ranks closely behind American Beauty, The Sixth Sense and The Insider as my favorite movie of the year. At some point it gets ridiculous saying which one is better. All I know is that this strange wondrous tale of a very special death row inmate and the effects he has on everybody around him left me and my date stunned. It is brutal, profane, shocking, sweet, heart warming and, at the end, enigmatic. It throws you through a lot of emotions. Although I didn't read the book(s) I've read enough of King to know that his voice rang loudly in Darabont's adaptation. It is a great story. Darabont's treatment in both writing and directing must make the author ecstatic. Tom Hanks shines (once again) as the prison guard assigned to keep peace on Death Row. But when John Coffey becomes his charge he begins to wonder what inner peace is all about. Coffey is played by Michael Duncan in a performance that came as much from out of nowhere as Haley Joel Osment's act in the Sixth Sense. The rest of the cast is also excellent. The amusing meanderings of the first half prove to be essential to the revelations of the second half. It is a real stunner.