Touching story brilliantly acted!

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2001)

See this movie!
This is an interesting and touching story which is well-written. The sets were simple and the film-making techniques entirely unobtrusive - very little reliance on special effects or gimmickry here. As other films are treats to the eyes, this one is to the soul - celebrating the goodness of a handful of people without overdoing the conflict with evil.

John Coffey ("like the drink only not spelled the same") is played brilliantly by Michael Clarke Duncan as a huge and simple man with amazing powers - a sort of combination of John Travolta's character in Phenomenon and Lenny in Of Mice and Men. I'll be looking for his name in future.
Hanks? Well, he's on the top of the heap nowadays so he's attracting a lot of pot-shots but it's difficult to fire any at him based on this performance. Put simply, his performance is flawless - probably too stoic a character to get credit for huge emotional range but all the more believable for it.
The supporting cast (James Cromwell, David Morse, Doug Hutchison, Jeffrey DeMunn and the rest) were almost perfect to a one - communicating their feelings without going over the top with melodrama.
The one criticism (and it's mild) I could level at this film is its length - there are several scenes which are not essential to either the plot or character development which could probably spare this film 1/2 hour with some judicious editing. Plus, the flashbacks which bookend the story did very little for me - I may be wrong but I believe that this film would be just as effective and certainly shorter without them.
Still, this film is entirely enjoyable for its entire 3 hour length. Enjoy it for what it is - a well-acted, well-written touching story about the goodness in (some) people.
P.S. I'll probably be buying a copy of this movie to dust off on some future rainy weekend afternoon.