Another Stephen King prison redemption

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2004)

Stephen King wouldn't write an ordinary prison story (though staying in the realm of the natural, Shawshank Redemption certainly wasn't ordinary), and this film adaptation of his serialized novel shows it. Set in a southern Depression-era prison (as an extended flashback), a humane prison guard captain on Death Row (Tom Hanks) encounters the miraculous healing powers of a seemingly simple-minded, illiterate, but huge black inmate named John Coffey, portrayed in a break-through performance by Michael Clarke Duncan, convicted of raping and murdering two young white girls. We know this man wouldn't deliberately do such a thing, but there is little predictable and much original in the unfolding of events both in the prison and in the lives of all those who come in touch with this unlikely, gentle healer. In its own way this fim too is "redemptive." A superb supporting cast makes this film, which never drags in its three-hour tenure, truly top-rate.