It's A Very Good Movie, But Something Just Doesn't Quite Work For Me

Rating: 7/10 (31 January 2003)

This is a movie on the edge of greatness. That's what comes to my mind as I think about it. There's a great story here (actually a number of stories, intricately woven together into a whole.) There are some fantastic performances. Tom Hanks was good as always, although I didn't think he quite lived up to his Oscar winning performances in "Forrest Gump" or "Philadelphia." Michael Clarke Duncan perfectly captured the character of the mysterious John Coffey. Was he a child murderer or not? That question will be answered in the movie. But there are still more questions about him that are (appropriately, I think) left to the viewers' imagination. Is he a human with special healing powers or is he some sort of supernatural being - an angel, perhaps? We don't know. But stealing the show I thought was Doug Hutchison as the sadistic prison guard Percy Wetmore. He fits the (admittedly unfair) stereotype of a prison guard: a pathetic little loser who makes himself feel like a man by abusing inmates. Hutchison was excellent.
So if the story and performances are great, why do I say that the movie is only on the edge of greatness? To be quite honest, I can't quite put my finger on it but something here just didn't quite work for me. I found my attention wandering from time to time. True, it's a very long movie (well over three hours) but it wasn't really the length. Maybe there just seemed to be a lot of extraneous detail that seemed to obscure the main focus of the movie, which should have remained on Coffey throughout. Maybe it was the setting of the movie as a flashback. (I found the beginning and ending in the nursing home totally unnecessary, and would have liked the focus to be simply on the Green Mile.) I'm not sure what it was, but it just didn't quite make the grade to a great movie for me. Very good, but not quite great, although it's worth noting that Stephen King was apparently very pleased with this adaptation of his book. (It also provides a good primer in the use of an electric chair, and some graphic depictions of the results of its use.)
7/10