In 1996, Stephen King released The Green Mile in instalments, in much the same manner as Charles Dickens once released his larger works.
It was appropriate because, as King tales go, The Green Mile has a Dickensian tone. It's a big story, encompassing decades, full of tragedy, horrific evil, heart-wrenching goodness and a cast of diverse, colourful characters.
Of course, it's also a King story, so it also boasts an element of the supernatural. As was the case with John Smith, the hero of King's The Dead Zone, extraordinary things happen when Death Row inmate John Coffey touches something.
In the movie version of the book, Coffey's powers are discovered by prison guard Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), the chief guard in the Death Row wing of Cold Mountain Penitentiary.
Paul suffers a debilitating urinary tract infection as the story begins -- once we get past the framing device involving the elderly Paul telling his story to a fellow inmate in an old folks' home, that is.
He is miraculously cured at the touch of new inmate Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), an imposing seven-foot-tall giant. Worried that their new inmate will be a potential menace, Coffey and his fellow guards are surprised to learn he is childlike, polite, gentle and even a little afraid of the dark.
He has worse things of which to be afraid. Coffey faces a date with E-block's electric chair -- "Old Sparky." He stands convicted of murdering two little girls. As Paul gets to know Coffey better, and he gets to know him very well indeed, he suspects it's a bum rap.
But Paul and his fellow guards soon have other problems, one on either side of the prison bars.
One is new prison guard Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), a relative of the governor's wife, who apparently took the job to satisfy his sadistic streak.
The other is the incorrigible sociopath known as Wild Bill (Sam Rockwell), a murderer so vile he makes you feel sorry for the guards in a prison movie.
Their fates are all tied in with Coffey, whose powers are revealed to be more and more dramatic. His execution, Edgecomb fears, may turn out to be the most terrible crime of all.
Screenwriter-director Frank Darabont, who likewise adapted and directed King's The Shawshank Redemption, indulges himself somewhat with a three-hour running time and leisurely sense of exposition. For example, Edgecomb's urinary infection is given so much screen time, you'll feel like you've wandered into a high school hygiene film. (If Hanks gets an Oscar nod, it will be interesting to see the clips that include the wide spectrum of facial expression he assumes while urinating.)
Even without the supernatural element, the story tends to meander well beyond the bounds of credibility and logic, and the fault may lie with the source material. King reportedly wasn't sure how the novel would finish when the first instalment was published. You get a sense narrative desperation in a hokey subplot involving the penitentiary's warden (James Cromwell) and his ailing wife (Patricia Clarkson).
But Darabont more than compensates by mounting a handsome production and choosing actors who can transfix an audience, including Michael Jeter and Graham Greene as two doomed inmates, Hutchison and Rockwell as the vile -- but credible -- villains, Duncan as the gentle giant Coffey and, of course, Hanks as the tortured Edgecomb.
As he did in The Shawshank Redemption, Darabont again reinvents the prison movie, transforming it into a profound fable of good and evil.
(This film is rated AA)
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