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"I don't think I'd ever want to do another serial novel," Stephen King wrote in the afterword to his six-part 1996 novel The Green Mile, "if only because the critics get to kick your ass six times instead of just the once." Critical bias against the author may have shaped some reviews for the novel, but it's doubtful that film critics will have much negative to say about Frank Darabont's moving and thoroughly triumphant screen adaptation. Given the aesthetic and critical success of his 1994 adaptation of King's Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, scripter/director Darabont was the perfect selection to adapt The Green Mile, and he damned well knew it, blowing in on King and company during Mick Garris' 1997 shoot of The Shining TV mini-series to personally solicit himself for the job. His faithful, insightful rendering of the novel has yielded a film that will doubtless garner several Oscar nods come this spring--and score a few statuettes, if there's any justice in the world. The sure-thing for the Hollywood end of the proceedings is the casting of Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecombe, head prison guard of Cold Mountain Penitentiary's death row section. In 1935, this Louisiana correctional facility has seen its share of down and dirty criminals come and go, but at this point in time, a new, enigmatic condemned man has come onto the Green Mile (nicknamed that because of the lime-green floor which the condemned must walk on their final stroll, straight to the execution chamber). This new inmate is one John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a giant of a man with a tearful, genteel nature. A black man convicted of raping and murdering two young girls, Coffey has been sentenced to die in the electric chair. Among the other staff on the Mile, there is Brutus ("Brutal") Howell, an imposing but compassionate prison guard played by David Morse; Hal Moores (Jamie Cromwell), the prison warden whose wife is dying from a brain tumor; prison guard Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), a cruel and instantly-hissable little tormentor to the inmates and whose "connections" got him the job and can get others fired if they give him any grief; and comic-relief character Old Toot-Toot (Harry Dean Stanton), a trustee and snack vendor on the mile who occasionally stands in for the condemned during execution rehearsals. The dramatic pivot of the narrative comes from two revelations about Coffey: first, that he has the power to heal with his hands; and second, that he may be completely innocent of the crimes for which he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. As the story is told from Edgecombe's remembrances, the heavy burden of truly "carrying" the film falls directly on Hanks' shoulders. And he pulls it off without a hitch, assuming we can forgive the fake Hollywood southern accent he's required to use; precious few in Hollywood know how to do an authentic southern accent (kudos to Jodie Foster for getting it right in Silence Of The Lambs).
Throughout The Green Mile, there are sidebar issues and supporting characters that enrich the 1935 segment of the film; the present-day endpieces feature Dabbs Greer, best known as the preacher on TV's "Little House On The Prairie," as an aged Paul Edgecombe in a convalescent home. There is a gruesome scene of a botched (well, sabotaged) execution, for which Savini-protege Greg Nicotero and his KNB Effects Group were called in to render authentic make-up effects; never before on film has a man fried in the chair quite like this unfortunate Cajun. And as the 1935 segment nears its end, the great paradox of the story reaches its dramatic zenith: if an innocent black man (who also performs healing miracles) cannot somehow be spared from his impending condemnation, then what punishment must be cast upon his custodians? As the segment nears its close, viewers will dread to hear the fatal words "roll on two." >>Back<< >>Features Main<<
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