The Formula that works

Rating: 6/10 (7 January 2011)

The movie was good. I enjoyed it on one level and was slightly disappointed in the turns it took. It touched themes of racism and even played upon our own feelings about color and mental illness. The movie tried it's best to walk the green mile of movie telling by making the characters either fully terrible or fully good. My only problem with this movie is the fact that a mentally challenged man of color could be allowed to be wrongly electrocuted for a crime against little white girls. All they had to do was let the warden and anyone else (even the parents) touch John and see the crime as well. To allow an innocent man to die and call it a tear jerker is beyond me. The scene where John walks in to the warden's wife's room was totally innuendo with overtones which were unnecessary. The editor pulled down her dressed after the shock factor. Why couldn't the big healer get exonerated and a twist be put on the old formula where John studies Holistic medicine and become "Somebody"? I wonder when we will transcend the usual stereotypes and not let the societal monster live. King seems to paint his characters with wide brushes but the sacrificing of the same types of people become formulaic. Obviously in the thirties this was most likely impossible in Louisiana but it was also impossible to put a black prisoner with whites. I guess we believe what we are allowed to believe.