Sanitised, sugar-coated and shallow, unless you BELIEVE.

Rating: 6/10 (3 March 2008)

It's not all negative; the period feel is strong, if very middle-class (the sharecroppers have a phone???), and so are the ensemble performances. The Green Mile unquestionably does a good job of pressing the right emotional response buttons for entertainment purposes. So does 'Bambi'. My problem with TGM is the amount of disbelief that has to be suspended to enjoy it. In Disney cartoons you know that anything is allowed to be possible, it's an animation. In TGM it's completely obvious - and completely unnecessary - that John Coffey is holding a light bulb in the 'help' moments; it's completely obvious that his breathing out the 'badness' is gratuitous CGI; couldn't they just have left him and the others to ACT it? The overwrought SFX turn Coffey's miracles into cheap sideshow stunts. Don't get me started on the mouse, by which the cardboard characters are upstaged. TOO MUCH MOUSE!
It's a shame that the script characterisations are totally subservient to the sentimental story, like in a pantomime. Cold Mountain Block D managed to recruit the most liberal-minded bunch of warders in the country - but not one of them ever has a twinge of conscience, let alone any sense of smell! The only point where a character seems to get complicated is when the oh-so-nasty nephew turns co-operative for five minutes after striking a bargain with Tom Hanks. He soon reverts to stereotype. The rest of the film they all just follow paths that wouldn't be out of place in a high school nativity play. At no time does any of these sensitive, earnest death row wardens question the morality of capital punishment - from either end, even to get slapped down. Nobody criticises it, nobody justifies it, it's just not an issue, even in the modern, smell-less old folk's home at the beginning. You're left with the conclusion that in spite of all their caring, sharing postures, that those warders are just pretending, and just want to see those guys fry, like waiters longing for the last customer to leave. And so you stop believing their good intentions, and your disbelief is suspended. Same as I felt when I saw that poster covering the hole waving in the draft in 'Shawshank'. The morality of capital punishment is an elephant in the room that TGM and its sensitive, liberal characters ignore - apart from the attorney - he had the right degree of bloodlust.
TGM is effective as broad entertainment, but the reality of the situations (execution, racism) it deals with is so horrible that you almost want to shout "stop sugar-coating it!" at the screen. Tom Hanks - his usual dependable, if ever-so-slightly bland performance - experiences ten times more pain from his NSU than from the gruesome job he does, and the ghastly system he is a pillar of. And the reason TGM takes so long between story beats (how many times must we see him screw that thing on his head, already!) is that if it didn't, the paper-thin story would crash and burn in an hour. Don't take it as seriously as it takes itself, it's a well-dramatised piece of mummery.