Excellent adapation of excellent novel

Rating: 8/10 (25 March 2000)

As far as I'm concerned, King adapations are notoriously awful. (Take any film version of wonderful IT, for example.) But this marathon of a movie, based on - and closely following - the novel of the same name, is all but perfect. With a script that captures both the atmosphere and the story of the 'serial novel' The Green Mile perfectly, it's still mainly the acting that excels - though the director deserves a lot of credit too. Tom Hanks is wonderful as always, James Cromwell and David Morse do their thing and do it as well as expected of them, and Graham Greene sets down another convincing old Indian (excuse me, Native American). But Michael Duncan is the real star here. I remember thinking, after reading the book, that it would be impossible to find a convincing actor for the role of John Coffey, but in Duncan the casting has found the perfect match. This movie is worth seeing all three hours of. Don't miss it!