Cinematic gold.

Rating: 10/10 (18 January 2017)

If you've never seen 'The Green Mile', then you need to at least once in your lifetime. A truly beautiful adaptation of Stephen King's book of the same name based in Death Row of an American prison between the 1920 and 1930'
The backdrop is a hot, unforgiving summer in what was the springtime of the guards lives. Led by Tom Hanks's character Paul Edgecomb, the men discover the extraordinary gifts of a prisoner by the the name of John Coffey who was to be executed for the rape and murder of two little girls. John was played by the late Michael Duncan Clarke, a man whose soulful demeanour and muscular build brought the adaptation of the character alive from the very first minute you meet him on screen. Despite John's size, his gentle demeanour and vulnerability soon reveals an extraordinary gift as Paul opens up to John about his urine infection. The guards set about utilising him to cure others.
The film brings to the fore the harsh reality of the guards duties whereby they walk the condemned prisoners to their eventual execution along the last walk of their lives along the green painted floor dubbed 'The Green Mile".
The film depicts the array of emotions one would naturally expect, purveying the horrors of prison life, remorse and eventually death. Characters such as Wild Bill and Percy, both cruel and sadistic, thwart the lives of Paul, his men and prisoners under his charge.
John, whilst in transit, discovers that Wild Bill is the true murderer of the two girÄºs for whom he'd eventually be executed for dispenses his own justice upon him. Percy, after deliberately sabotaging an execution of a prisoner, also receives a similar fate of his own when John infects him with a tumour thus leaving an inpatient of the local psychiatric hospital.
The film is tinged with both good times and sad, particularly when John is finally executed, breaking the spirits of Paul and the guards fortunate to have met him.
It truly is a piece of cinematic gold and needs to be watched from start to finish in its entirety, giving you an appreciation of life's trials and tribulations.