Sophomore Curse Strikes Again.

Rating: Null/10 (12 December 1999)

Very few filmmakers can dodge the cinematic equivalent of the Sword of Damocles, the sophomore curse. It basically says that the second film the director of a critical or box office success will in all likelihood suck (no one said it was literary). Paul Brickman was supposedly so afraid of it that it took him six years following "Risky Business" to give us "Men Don't Leave" which proved he had a lot to fear (and hasn't directed since, only writing lame fare such as "True Crime"). The most notable exception, and remember the exceptions prove the rule boys and girls, is Quentin Tarantino. His sophomore effort was "Pulp Fiction." Frank Darabont isn't so lucky. (Nitpickers please note: while Darabont has indeeded directed before "Shawshank," those were TV productions and not studio releases to which the "curse" applies)
Like "Resevoir Dogs," "The Shawshank Redemption" didn't really find it's audience until hitting video and cable. As a collector of laser discs, I can tell when a movie has reached certain plateau of being a cherished experience for viewers: when I can't find used copies. I can't recall ever seeing a "Shawshank" in the used bin. Darabont has stored up a lot of goodwill over his debut and it was a shame to have to watch him waste it over three hours in a theater the other night. And waste it he does in the bloated, plodding and tired "The Green Mile." I would like to thank him for one thing: thank you, THANK YOU, for keeping the article in the title. Too bad his "Shawshank" star Robbins didn't do the same for "Cradle Will Rock."
If another movie is opening this winter with more goodwill towards its success I'd be hard pressed to name it. Tom Hanks! Stephen King! The same dude behind "Shawshank!" Talk about cutting a broad swath across a potential audience pool. One wants to like this movie. Which is why it will take a few days to a week for many to realize that "The Green Mile" has fallen victim to the curse. For some the moment might not come until six months from now when they are perusing the "New Releases" section and find they can easily skip over a second viewing of this disappointment.
The movie stumbles from the opening frame, first with a posse that pretty much looks like what they are - a bunch of extras in hillbilly overalls. Then Darabont makes the same mistake "Saving Private Ryan" did with a wholly unneeded present day bookend device that adds not one iota to our understanding of the film. What lies between is an even bigger letdown. For one thing, Tom Hanks manages a reversal of the usual disparity between an actor's age and that of the characters by actually looking younger than the 44 his Paul Edgecombe is supposed to be. Hanks also looks a bit miscast as head guard for the squad that keeps the peace on death row. As arguably the most bankable star of today, Hanks is prone to the occasional miscasting for those whose memories don't go back across the gulf of time to "The Bonfire of the Vanities."
Missing from "Mile" is "Shawshank's" unerring cinematography and production design. While some scenes set in Edgecombe's house, especially the kitchen, were windows to a time most of us have never seen, others just didn't have that verisimilitude the milieus in Shawshank afforded. Here's a movie set in Louisiana that rarely has characters sweating. I will give Darabont a lot of credit by not ducking the racial overtones of his period, however. Anyone who thinks it's racist for a 1930's black prisoner is defer to his guard as "Yessum, boss" must have studied their history from the same book that sells the Utopian version of the 50's everyone wanted Reagan to bring back. Another element of woeful inadequacy was the score. For a film like this to succeed in selling the aura of miraculousness, an uplifting and powerful score goes a long way in helping to get across the wonder of what we see. Which is "The Green Mile's" biggest stumble, this inability to make one in awe of John Coffey's healing power.
Not trimming this movie from it's 188 minute running time was writer/director Darabont's worse decision. Jettisoning the unneeded bookend would have saved 20 minutes right off the bat. Deciding that he was making a movie about miracles in a prison and not the evils of capital punishment by electrocution could have saved another 15 to 25, especially the hammy scenes with Harry Dean Stanton rehearsing the condemned men's last steps. Overall, the film needed tightening as every scene dragged on killing whatever momentum it had built up for the film as a whole. Darabont's not the only director to have gone this bloated route lately. Perhaps someone should circulate a memo on how and why a film should run past the customary 120 minutes or less. I could suggest a film to watch, one I happen to see this week - "The Right Stuff." There's' a movie that needs 3 hours or so to tell its story. Sure, you could cut out all the Chuck Yeager stuff and save about an hour. But without Yeager, it would loose it's heart and soul. Even in 188 minutes, "The Green Mile" never seems to find its.