I hate to be the Grinch who steals Tom Hanks' Christmas, but his overhyped new holiday movie, The Green Mile, is a bitter disappointment.
Not because it's bad -- there are too many quality people involved to create a complete disaster -- but because it's mediocre, often boring, too predictable and, worst of all, a lot of hokum. All that Oscar buzz seems like so much hot air.
It looked so promising. The source is the serious side of Stephen King. The Green Mile comes from King's popular serialized novel, which came out in six instalments in 1996.
The story, set primarily in 1935 but framed by contemporary bookends, takes us to a Louisiana state prison where Hanks leads a squad of prison guards who oversee executions on Death Row -- that Green Mile of the title because of the green linoleum on the hallway leading to the electric chair.
Hand of God
The issues raised here are complex and humanistic, with a touch of the surreal and the supernatural. One of their prisoners seems touched by the hand of God. Handled properly, this could be enlightened stuff for audiences to grapple with.
The director is classy Frank Darabont, who also adapted King's book for the screen. He did the same with another King prison creation and came up with the sublime film The Shawshank Redemption, one of the great movies of the 1990s.
The cast for The Green Mile is top-notch. Hanks is a near-perennial Oscar nominee as best actor. His strong backup here consists of David Morse, Bonnie Hunt, James Cromwell, Michael Jeter, Graham Greene, Harry Dean Stanton, William Sadler and Gary Sinise in a brief cameo.
Even the relative unknown (but much noticed) Michael Clarke Duncan acquits himself well in an impossible role -- as the giant inmate who embodies a celestial light that lets him heal wounds, see visions and sense the anguish and pain of man's inhumanity to man. It is not for nothing that the character's name, John Coffey, shortens to J.C.
With that kind of weight -- we're talking about equating the crucifixion of Christ with the threatened electrocution of a man accused of murdering two little girls -- The Green Mile had to be staged to perfection.
Supernatural silliness
Add the racial overtones -- our Coffey/Christ is black and his alleged victims are white. Then there is the supernatural silliness. The Green Mile had to go the distance to be credible.
It falters, badly, partly because the bookends of the story are so ludicrous and awkward. Partly because of the overacting, the implausible situations (the healing of the warden's wife), the prolonged execution scenes and the jarring, off-putting special effects sequences (the massed clouds of flies).
As for the star himself, he looks and sounds so serious it hurts. That's not necessarily great acting. Hanks can walk a mile in another man's shoes, but you don't have to give him an Oscar every time he does it.
(This film is rated AA)
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