Good but not great

Rating: 6/10 (14 February 2000)

Another great film from the director of "Shawshank Redemption" or just a repetition of his first (immense) success? Although the potentials were promising, the taste in the end is less sweet than expected.Shawsank's major advantage was realism,something that misses from Mile,where many events are at least beyond imagination.The (few) changes by Darabond in the original script are not helping much,with some of them being suspicious.(Why Percy seems more hostile than in the book?)The film's epic duration is exhausting,a few scenes could have been easily cut off.(Wild Bill's pie-thrown at Brutus,Paul chats with his wife,Bitterback's preparation for his death).The script is rather dramatic (we can't say there is a happy ending),but along with the supernatural atmosphere the burst of emotions is not that spontaneous as in Redemption.Still,acting is great(Hanks is good as always,Duncans emotions are perfectly expressed) and there are great and lines that stand out of a crowd.Every secondary characters are exploited but the story still appeals to me as a (well done) tale.Isn't S.King a great storyteller or what?!