A Modern Fable

Rating: 9/10 (15 January 2003)

"The Green Mile" is staged in a Louisiana prison during the Depression. If this setting doesn't sound depressing enough, make it the prison's death row (aka The Green Mile so named because of the color of the floor). But "The Green Mile" is not a litany of prison misery a la HBO's TV series "Oz". This is a modern day fable, as fantastical as its medieval forebears, and as multi-layered.
The movie is narrated in flashback by Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), who, from his current domicile in a retirement home, describes the amazing events that occurred to him and his fellow guards decades earlier. At the outset of the story there are four guards assigned to the Green Mile; three decent men and one sadist, looking after three men condemned to die in the prison's crude electric chair. One of the condemned men, a giant black man, has a special gift, the gift of healing.
There aren't many characters in this 3-hour movie, but it doesn't matter. The screenplay, from a Stephen King novel, moves the story briskly along. The ensemble acting, headed by Hanks, is some of the best of 1999. It's not a happy story, far from it, but it's one worth investing three hours of your time.