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When I visited MGM Studios for the first time about 10years ago, I couldn't wait to go on The Great Movie Ride, for obvious reasons. Scenes from "Casablanca", "Alien" and "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" all packed into an attraction housed inside a reproduction of Mann's Chinese Theater had me playing the part of Clifford The Dog as I dragged my poor wife through the park knocking over those pesky elderly Floridians and Mouseketeers.
The first time we went on The Movie Ride, it was a righteous experience.
The second time, it was pretty good. The third, it was okay. The seventh time blew because nothing was surprising and Disney removed the life-like Alien that popped out of the ceiling bearing its slimy, pointed fangs. Word is, the Alien scared small children right out of their Mickey Mouse ears. Now all you see is Sigourney Weaver talking to a wall. Man, that sucks worse than having that crappy song stuck in your head the rest of the day after you've been on that final experiment by the Marquis De Sade - the It's A Small World ride.
What's this got to do with "The Green Mile", you say? The same principle applies. If you haven't read Stephen King's 1996 serial thriller on which the film is based, you will be captivated by a textured, character-driven story that takes THREE whole hours to tell.
If however, you HAVE read the books and can telegraph the twists a mile away, you might find yourself counting the ceiling tiles or the number of popcorn kernels you dropped on that sticky-as-Crazy Glue floor.
"The Green Mile" signalled the end of Stephen King's terrible threesome phase - "Dolores Claiborne", "Insomnia" and "Rose Madder". He stopped writing novels that had the plots of Sunday night TV movies and returned to the superb storytelling he's never gotten enough credit for. "The Green Mile" was a welcome throwback to the Big Steve of old.
Paul Edgecombe (Dabbs Greer as the elderly Edgecombe) is a geezer on the edge of mummification living in a retirement home. To pass the time before the Grim Reaper comes a knocking, Edgecombe recounts his life as a death-row prison guard to his main squeeze Elaine Connely (a sassy Eve Brent), instead of putting them to paper as he does in King's books.
Excluding the start and finish, "The Green Mile" is a flashback to Georgia in 1935. Mr. All-American hisself - Tom Hanks - takes over the Edgecombe role.
David Morse, Doug Hutchinson, Barry Pepper and Jeffery DeMunn are his fellow guards assigned to watch over four death row inmates awaiting their chance to walk the Green Mile - a stretch of hallway leading to the execution room - and ride the lightening.
One convict in particular throws our gang for a loop. John Coffey ("Armageddon"'s Michael Clarke Duncan), an enormous man-child convicted of killing two young girls, is a gentle giant with miraculous gifts that defy explanation. Edgecombe can't believe Coffey was ever capable of committing such a ghastly crime, so he takes a special interest in the big lug.
Just to make Edgecombe's job more complicated than it need be is Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchinson), the sadistic rookie guard. The virtually untouchable Wetmore flagrantly waves his affluent connections in Edgecombe's face whenever he's the cause of serious trials and tribulations.
The destinies of the guards and their prisoners intertwine as the clock ticks down on what could be John Coffey's first and final meeting with Old Sparky.
Though other entertainment media outlets would initiate talk of an Oscar nomination if he appeared in a commercial for Screaming Norman's Used Car Emporium, Tom Hanks does not deserve a gold statuette for "The Green Mile". No way. No how. That is not to say his work isn't good. It's fine but nowhere near great. The movie is dependent on Michael Clarke Duncan and Doug Hutchinson, and boy, do they shine brightly.
If anyone is worthy of the nod, it's Duncan. You couldn't ask for a more sympathetic portrayal if you put a puppy dog at Duncan's feet and a newborn baby in his arms. Duncan turns in one of the most memorable and heart-felt performances of the year.
The usual complaint of bookworms like myself is that a film diverts from its written source so severely in the filmmaking process that it loses its heart and soul.
With "The Green Mile", it's the opposite. Director, writer and producer (Whew!) Frank ("The Shawshank Redemption") Darabont has so painstakingly reproduced King's series that he's fallen into the trap of many a Stephen King book editor. He can't bring himself to chop any extraneous scene the Master has penned even if it means the pace slows to a snail's crawl.
"The Green Mile" is deliberate storytelling of the worst kind. Similar to "The Thin Red Line", everything that was achieved, the excellent acting and camera work, has the life strangled out of it by a plodding tempo.
Did I mention that The Green Mile is THREE hours long? Just checking.
The Powell Formula
Michael Clarke Duncan and Doug Hutchinson x a REAL nasty execution scene + a special guest appearance by Gary Sinise x Fred Astaire sings "Cheek To Cheek" x the unsanitizing of a 1930's Georgia x swarms of insects flying out of people's mouths x Hanks for saying..."Whatever happens on the Mile, stays on the Mile" x a couple of barbecued corpses - a tobacco spitting incident = You're doing hard time.
(This film is rated AA)