this film is too long

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 1999)

Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, and now The Green Mile. They all begin with old croaker characters who begin to tell us a three hour story. Unfortunately, they come back at the end of the film as well and are sometimes nominated for Academy Awards. Too bad the stories can stand on their own without these unnecessary flashback structures. In this case, the sequences which take place in the present and are the bookends of The Green Mile ruin the film. They tack on a good 20-25 minutes and the audience gains nothing for their extra time.
This is an average good film. I had to give it a 7 out of 10 because people are being too easy on it. Better films about prisons include: Bad Boys and Dead Man Walking, both with Sean Penn, Shawshank Redemption, and Cool Hand Luke to name a few. This film joins End of Days (though is obviously much better) as films that mess too much with religious symbolism and are too obvious with it. John Coffey is a goofy Jesus Christ, one who sucks the tumors out of one woman only to spit them into a troubled man. The real Jesus Christ would've been more forgiving.
If we spent less time with Jingles the Mouse, less time with the old croaker actors (the woman is really bad), less time with everybody but John, this would be a much better film, and no longer than 130 minutes. While a good effort, this had better not be this year's best picture. And please, Tom Hanks has enough oscars. Let Jim Carrey and Kevin Spacey duke it out.