Stephen King story yet again makes a good movie

Rating: 6/10 (7 August 2000)

What makes a story by Stephen King so adaptable for the screen? The green Mile is a great example of showing the worst and the best in human nature all in one fell swoop. Of course it is impossible to steer clear of comparison to the Shawshank Redemption, especially as it is directed by Darabont who accomplished to make one of the greatest films of all time. The green mile is arguably not as good as Shawshank Redemption but it is a prison drama told from a completely different angle and that is why one is not disappointed when watching it. It has very sentimental moments and it has a certain self-congratulatory and self-conscious feel when it comes to relationship between Coffey and all the "good white folk" in the sense of: "look how sensitive we are handling the race issue". The role of John Coffey is well portrayed and I love the way you can speculate about where he came from and how old he really is but the film does sometimes fall into sentimentality that evokes resistance to the fantastic story being told. Tom Hanks is reliable as ever in a story that would put anyone off the death penalty but then decides to change its mind in the end by condoning the death penalty after all but only for very, very, bad people.
So all in all a good movie that doesn't particularly linger on in memory mainly due to the deliberate tugging at heart strings.