Your view of Death Penalty will change from watching this movie!

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2005)

Despite the difficult subject of death row, Stephen King's Green Mile is a story about death row inmates and the men who guard and will execute them in the end. The cast is excellent with Tom Hanks always turning in an Academy Award winning performance as the head guard. I never imagined the Bosom buddy could be brutal. He is surrounded by very accomplished actors and actresses-Bonnie Hunt plays his wife and Patricia Clarkson plays the ill-stricken wife of James Cromwell's character. I enjoyed watching professional actors like James Cromwell, Harry Dean Stanton and William Morse turn in excellent performances all around. I have to say that I was saddened by Michael Jeter's finest performance in the movie before his own death by AIDS. Of course, the main reason I watched was for Doug Hutchison who now plays Sebastian Hulce on Guiding Light, my favorite soap. As wonderful as he was in The Green Mile, he is better as Sebastian. I found his performance to be a breakthrough performance for somebody. But it is Michael Clarke Duncan who truly earned his Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor that was really inspiring to watch. If you ever had a definite view of the death penalty, this film will change your mind about the barbarism and cruelty not on the death row inmates but on the guards themselves. I probably won't watch this film again. I get too emotionally involved. I am glad that the electric chair is not used like it used to be. It is rarely used nowadays. It is replaced by lethal injection. But now I wonder about the guards who befriend and form relationships with their prisoners whether they liked it or not. Now I wonder what happens to the guards after they become executioners themselves? You wonder what makes them different from the criminals!