Mr. Jingles Kicks Butt!!!

Rating: 9/10 (1 March 2007)

Not many movies do Stephen King's novels justice, but this one was a pleasant surprise. John Coffey is the gentle giant falsely accused of raping and murdering two young girls in depression era Louisiana (Mississippi in the book)and is awaiting execution on death row, known as the green mile because the walk to the electric chair is over a green floor. Tom Hanks plays as the death row warden Paul Edgecomb who takes on a Pontius Pilate roll when he is made to realize that John is innocent of this heinous crime. One weeps as John is led to his execution at the end of the movie, but one also feels relief for him because, as he told Paul, he wanted it to be over. "I'm tired, boss. Dead tired," he repeats throughout the movie, and it sounds almost like the refrain of a folk ballad. "I'm tired of people being ugly to each other." John had a gift of healing but also the curse of feeling others' pain, and it was this that he wanted to be released from.
Mr. Jingles was an entertaining balance to the grisly scenes in the execution chamber, and John heals him after a mean-spirited guard stepped on him and broke every bone in his body. (What was with Percy anyway? The guy went postal over seeing a mouse, and I don't think the book even explains this very well.) Incidentally, wasn't that Mr. Jingles I also saw in SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION as Andy Dufresne was being led down "the hole" into solitary confinement? I wonder...
Great movie. Surprisingly gentle for a Stephen King story. 9 out of 10.