MYSP Q2 Post 2: The Green Mile

For my second movies in your spare time post this quarter, I watched the 1999 film adaption of Stephen King's novel, The Green Mile.  Starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan (RIP), the film tells the story of a death row prison guard in the year 1935 as strange events play out.  Overall, I thought this film was very well done.  I would give it a 4/5 stars.
The film was directed by Frank Darabont who directed a movie with a similar theme a few years earlier, The Shawshank Redemption.  The film begins following an elderly man in a retirement home.  As we hear conversations he has with his friend and the staff, we realize there is something this man is hiding.  Apparently he goes on long walks everyday.  While watching an old movie from the 1950s, he breaks down in tears, forcing him to explain himself to his friend in private.  This introduction to the film then leads into the flashback that makes up most of the rest of the film.  This was an effective way of doing this rather than cutting out the parts with the old man and having the flashback as the whole film because it sets up context, and explains what happens to him in the end.
The acting in the film was phenomenal.  Tom Hanks was right on the ball as always, and Michael Clarke Duncan stood out very much in what was probably his most famous role.  While the film was rather long (clocking at 3 hours and 8 minutes), and the setting remained in the prison most of the film, it did not seem to drag to me as every scene seemed to contribute to the whole story.
The film deals with several themes, most prominently (and obviously), death.  We get to know several characters who are death row inmates, and we find that they are actually good people too deep down (well, some of them).  In one inmates final sober moment before his execution, he tells Tom Hank's character the story of the happiest days of his life, wondering if that is what heaven will be like and if he truly repents what he has done, can he go to heaven?  Its moments like these that keeps the movie personal and emotional, but not in an over the top way.  Another theme that emerges is a true sense of good vs evil.  We are introduced to John Coffey (Michael C. Duncan) as an evil, baby raping/killing brute.  As the movie progresses however, we realize that not only is he a truly gentle, kind human being, he is literally one of God's miracles.  He has the ability to see into people's souls on physical contact, and we learn that another inmate, the rowdy 'Wild Bill', is the true definition of evil.
With the super powers of sort that emerge from John Coffey in the film, the ability to heal people, it almost starts to feel a bit cheesy and unbelievable, but then you must remind yourself that its more of a fantasy (even though it doesn't feel like it in the beginning).
Overall the Green Mile was a phenomenal film.  Yes, there were several borrowed elements from other films featuring the directors or actors (the flashback in the beginning borrowed from Saving Private Ryan and the prison theme from The Shawshank Redemption most notably), but overall the film feels fresh and certainly worth watching.

Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) and John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan)