A great cast is wasted in a predictable 3 hour episode of Amazing Stories

Rating: 6/10 (8 December 1999)

Like a languorous three hour episode of 'Amazing Stories', the Green Mile may be the nicest film about death row to hit the screens in a while. The Green Mile has a good cast and many entertaining scenes but without an essential spark or meaning that elevates it above a cartoon-like fantasy. It's predictable. Without the broad insertion of the magical elements (hence my 'Amazing Stories' reference) 'The Green Mile' would be a very bland prison movie indeed. Part of the problem is in the characterizations. Although fronted by a formidable cast (David Morse, James Cromwell, Harry Dean Stanton and Gary Sinise have *bit* roles), there is nary an interesting character among them. The Green Mile world is so pat that it's hard to bat an eyelash when Coffey begins demonstrating his magical powers (which of course he is too simple-minded to understand). Before you can say 'Escape from Witch Mountain', Coffey is amazing Death Row by curing Hanks of a urinary infection and empathically predicting events. But anyone who has read Stephen King already has that power of prediction. You know that Coffey will go on helping all the good people with their problems, while making sure that the bad people are hoisted on their own petards