Frank Darabont's Green Mile goes the extra mile and delivers a great movie.

Rating: 9/10 (5 August 2013)

I promise you that if you have any humanity in your soul, by the end of watching this movie. You will find yourself weeping, because how moving this movie is. The Green Mile is an amazing movie directed by Frank Darabont who knows a little bit about directing prison movies. His biggest claim to fame was 1994's Shawshank Redemption, a prison movie adapted from a Stephen King novel. So it was no surprise that Frank and Stephen King would once again team up to bring audiences another great movie. Can lightning strike in the same place twice? Yes! Set in the Deep South rather than the north this time, Green Mile takes place in Louisiana's prison during the Great Depression. The film really captured the era. Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecombe, a prison guard that works at a quarter of the prison whom job is to execute the inmates. The job is hard and tough. He became to question himself, and his job when a new inmate came named John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a simple minded giant whom works more like a miracle worker than a murderer. I have to say what a great cast! Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey was amazing. The way he can pull the audience in, with his delivery is just spell bounding. I got his 'broken glasses' and 'he kill them with they love' speech. I think this encompasses a major theme, how people are ugly and cruel to each other, and justice is only sometimes given. Everything about him, speaks John Coffey from the way he handle miracles, and even the child like innocents when playing with a pet mouse name Mr. Jingles. David Morse as Brutus "Brutal" Howell is a great supporting character that helps Paul with his job. I really liked his performance as the strong- will, second in command officer. Then there is Dough Hutchison as Percy Whetmore - he plays a great weasel. He captured Percy's cowardice, arrogance, and violence perfectly as the crudest of the guards. Last, worth noting is Sam Rockwell. He was a little older than how I imagined the criminal Wild Bill to be. He did bring some good humor to the film. I do find the moon pie scene hilarious. A lot of critics have panned the film for not having realistic characters. The characterizations on the death row inmates don't really seems like they belong there. Honestly, does anybody think Eduard Delacroix (Michael Jeter) even commit a crime? He seems way too old to be really a murderer, even Arlan Bitterbuck (Graham Greene) didn't seem so bad. Then you got Percy, the immature sadistic, racist, creep, painted here as being nothing less than 100% evil. Not 50% evil, not 80% evil. But 100% evil. Is that realistic? Is it? Does this guy have even a single redeeming feature? Nope, not one. So I'm not buying this guy either. The characters were way too good or just plan evil with little to no character development. I think it's OK to have film like that, and how the characters were portrayed, I think it was very accurate to the book. In the book, I had a hard time telling the other guards Harry (Jeffery DeMunn) and Dean (Barry Pepper) apart, so I'm glad in the movie, Dean was considerably older than Harry. The biggest change from the book is the racism in the South. I honestly think they toned it down in the movie, the n-word is used plenty of times in the book. Another thing that the movie didn't put was the short story about old Paul in Georgia Pines with a cruel employee that reminded him of Percy. Adding this to the movie would have made it too long, it was already three hours, but it definitely gave his elderly age some more depth. The movie did add some new things to help the film. I think the repeated visual of the light bulbs bursting during Coffey's bursts of power added to the story since we couldn't get inside of Paul's head. I also thought Coffey showing Paul what he saw as opposed to Paul going to investigate was a good move for the film - it shortened the film that was needed badly. Another thing that angry some critics, was the "Christ" like symbolism with John Coffey. People says it was too much messianic overtones in the story but it's absolutely ludicrous. As a Christian man, I wasn't offended by it. People need to be open to all beliefs to get this film. Once you get pass that, you find John Coffey to be a very interesting lovable guy, and you get emotional invested in him to the point that you cry when you see what happen in the end with his character. Then there are those people that mad because the movie is way too long. Not that that is always bad, but it didn't help things at all here. If this movie had been the standard flick, but I will defend this movie because the Green Mile is supposed to seem too long. It was even quote in the film. Anybody who read the book, should have known that. The music by Thomas Newman is amazing. It fits in with the mood of the film. Even the song from 1935's Top Hat work in this film. Overall: I really enjoyed this movie. I can understand why it was nominated for a Best Picture at the Academy Awards. An amazing story. Sad emotional for sure, but a lot of great stories are. BTW- RIP Michael Clarke Duncan. You were a great actor.