THE GREEN MILE
Needs less Highlander

  Having read Stephen King's six-part novel upon which this is based, and seen director Frank Darabont's previous film (The Shawshank Redemption), you wouldn't think that his adaptation of the book would borrow too much from Highlander.  But the borrowing's there, and what it borrows is the most annoying aspect - way-too-lengthy scenes where light bulbs explode everywhere because of some supernatural goings-on.  Otherwise, what we have here is a fine adaptation of my favorite King work of the 90's; maybe not everything it could be, and certainly a bit of a downward step for Darabont (as you probably already know, Shawshank was, like, beyond fabulous), but a worthy and impressive film nonetheless.

As you can tell from that godawful poster, a pancake-makeupped Tom Hanks stars.  He put on weight for the role of 1935 urinary tract-infected prison guard Paul Edgcomb; I guess nobody told him that he was supposed to distribute it more evenly than putting it all just underneath his chin.  Edgcomb is in charge of death row at his particular Louisiana prison; they call the row "The Green Mile" because of the green floor that leads all the way off to "Ol' Sparky", their electric chair.  Along with his lieutenants (Barry Pepper, Jeffrey De Munn, and a wonderfully subdued, everything-centers-on-him-when-he-speaks David Morse), he looks after the inmates on death row with a gentility and respect that we rarely see from prison guards in the movie.  Hell, more than we EVER see.  This has got to be the first prison movie I've ever seen where more than half the guards are shown as anything better than sadistic thugs.

Anyway, the latest guest on the Mile is the mysterious, who-the-hell-knows-where-he-came-from John Coffey, a gentle, illiterate, soft-spoken black man very slightly smaller than Iran.  Even though Coffey's been sentenced to die for the rape and murder of two little girls (who were found very much dead in his arms), he doesn't seem like a killer; his first request is for Edgcomb to leave a light on, because he's afraid of the dark.  Later on, he exhibits a talent that makes it clear that this is no ordinary prisoner, and Edgcomb and his men are left with the difficult question of just what to do with the man they describe as a miracle.

Also along for this low-key (but 3-hour) movie are Doug Hutchison as a sadistic prison guard (ah, there had to be one) who's hopelessly incompetent but gets (and keeps) his job by virtue of his relation to the governor.  Michael Jeter plays an incarcerated Cajun who befriends a tame, trick-performing mouse named Mr. Jingles.  James Cromwell plays the (kind and just!  Wow!) prison warden, Bonnie Hunt (completely loveable as always) plays Edgcomb's wife, and an oft-drooling Sam Rockwell plays a new inmate who reacts violently when called Wild Bill instead of Billy The Kid.

There's somewhat of an inevitability to the plot that makes things feel a little predictable - just as there's little doubt that the two villains are going to get what they deserve, one just knows that there isn't going to be an eleventh-hour call from the governor regarding Coffey's fate.  Some of the plot twists feel too pat and convenient (such as the too-easy method by which we find out the circumstances under which those girls were murdered, and, for that matter, those circumstances themselves), and some scenes feel so unnecessary that they stop the film dead, such as the appearances of Harry Dean Stanton and Gary Sinise.  Composer Thomas Newman  (one of many people returning with Darabont from The Shawshank Redemption) turns in a score that carbon-copies that of the previous film.

One thing that got irritating at the movies this year was half the movies out there making out their heroes to be Jesus; c'mon, didn't you groan every time Neo was referred to as The One, didn't you hold your head in  your hands when Shmii Skywalker said "There was no father"?  Well, there's plenty of that here too; I'd hardly be the first guy to point out John Coffey's initials or the rest of his New Testament parallels.  I guess your tolerance (whatever's left after this year) for this sort of thing might strongly effect how much you enjoy the movie overall; I might've REALLY held this against the film if I hadn't read the book when it came out, month by month, in 1996.

An additional, lingering problem is Hanks, whose affected accent places his performance in the totally unwelcome shadow of Forrest Gump, except here he's got the extra problem of this big, nasty jowl which, like a second head, I couldn't look away from.  Hell, when you get right down to it, I'm pretty tired of Hanks playing largely the same nice-guy role for every movie, and I'd like to see the guy tackle a role with some teeth.

Bitch, bitch, bitch, yeah, I know, but there's so much more good than bad here that it's still a hands-down winner, and it wins mostly on the strength of the cast and the characters they create.  There are actors like Johnny Depp who can be counted on for an Oscar-worthy performance when handed something interesting but can only be counted on for shit when he's not.  And then there are actors like David Morse, Jeffrey De Munn, Bill Sadler, Graham Greene, Bonnie Hunt, James Cromwell, you name 'em - actors who make their careers by turning unexceptional-seeming roles into something really memorable.  Like with Shawshank, this is a movie filled almost to its brim with actors like this, actors who can take a mediocre script and turn it into something mesmerizing, and can do nothing short of wonders with a good one.  All it needs is Terry O'Quinn!

Also of interest is Michael Clark Duncan as Coffey; the only thing I've seen him in before this was Armageddon, where he got one of its scant, scattered good moments ("You won't catch Poppa Bear!").  His performance as Coffey is kind of one-note - except for a strange encounter with Hutchison late in the film which feels rather out of character - but he hits that one note just right and finds and exploits the right harmonics.

Darabont handles the directorial duties admirably; aside from the aforementioned film-stopping dead spots, he moves the story flawlessly from the gentle whimsy of Mr. Jingles' tricks to the harrowing torment of a botched electrocution.  His scripting job is a shade less impressive; as with his adaptation of Shawshank, it's a bit of a cop-out to facilitate more empathy for these prisoners by never even touching on what they did to land them in prison in the first place.  But hey, where else can you see a scene of torrential urination presented seriously as a triumph? Astoundingly, it works.  Isn't that amazing?  Still, his choice of projects seems a shade troubling; his first directorial effort in five years and he is, again, using a period-set prison-movie guy-jerker based on a Stephen King book.  It wouldn't take much for the guy to branch out.

I'm looking forward to seeing how people react to this movie; Shawshank flopped at first but ultimately turned into a big hit over time.  There's a (much-hyped) anticipation here that Shawshank lacked, as well as a bit more of a consideration for a female audience (if one accepts the notion that more female roles constitutes that, of which I'm not entirely convinced).  And yet, initial reaction is subdued; praise, but restrained praise.  It'll be interesting.

Still, all that exploding-lightbulb shit should've gone out the window.  Pfft.

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