With The Green Mile, director Frank Darabont has begun pigeonholing his career quite nicely. He has started here to make a name for himself as the person to adapt Stephen King novels set in prison. His collaboration with King in this film is well-known throughout the movie world and well-respected. It can be said that his adaptions are truly definitive and fall into line easily with the original work itself.
However, Darabont's sophomore effort does not quite live up to the standard set in his first film, the Shawshank Redemption. Comparisons to Shawshank were inveitable, given their similar subject matter, a fact that is unfortunate for Darabont. This film suffers considerably from Shawshank envy, it seems, as it never develops enough warmth for its characters to surpass the previous film. To me The Green Mile was simply a rehashed attempt to recapture the brilliance of Darabont's previous work, and it never succeeded for me.
Now, don't get me wrong; I loved The Green Mile. It is a heartwarming movie, and the story is very engaging. It's just not as engaging as Shawshank, or as the original novel by King. As I stated before, The Green Mile is particularly faithful to the novel, and I believe it suffers even from being too faithful in some regards.
The original novel told the story of a very large black man named John Coffey who was convicted of the murder of two little girls and condemned to death in the electric chair. But the guards on Death Row (specifically the head guard, Paul Edgecombe) come to realize that this gentle man could not have possibly commited the crime he was accused of, when they come face to face with a miraculous gift of healing Coffey has within him. The novel was serialized originally in six parts, brought together by a frame story which the main character narrates sixty years later.
This frame story is kept intact in the film, even though it is not really necessary in the context of the movie screen. While a reading audience needs it explained who the narrator is and why he's telling the story, a film can simply jump right in to the plot. By keeping the narrator, the film is slow to start and takes too long to wrap up. In a film that runs over three hours, a slow-paced ending can mean death at the box office, and I was truly surprised that the last twenty minutes of the film (during which the movie is already over but doesn't seem to know it yet) didn't kill its chances for success.
By keeping the frame story, the movie does a disservice to other parts of the novel that had to be cut. The frame story itself is not as elaborate as it was in the book, and the movie's version is a pale comparison. Also, in the novel there is much more overt plot given to the actual murder case for which Coffey is condemned to die, and more of a subtext involving racism. While the racism subplot would not have added anything to the film, the movie doesn't seem complete without more knowledge of why Coffey was put in jail in the first place. The film covers it too briefly, giving Gary Sinise a pointless cameo as Coffey's lawyer and relegating the rest to very brief flashbacks. Shawshank covered Andy Dufresne's trial much in the same way, providing a little info about the case in the beginning and then giving more towards the end, but here it did not work as well.
However, one thing that did still surprise me, despite having read the book, was the graphic nature of the executions, especially the second. In both the novel and the film there are three executions that occur in the electric chair, and each is more horrifying than the last. In the film the third and final is absolutely gut-wrenching, but does not have as much of an effect if you have read the book beforehand and know it is coming. The film does an excellent job with the second, however, portraying its gruesomeness visually even better then King's mere words could.
The acting in this film does deserve some attention, even if it in and of itself is not spectacular. Tom Hanks in the role of Edgecombe fails to stand out on his own and sort of melts into the background in the face of the sheer size of John Coffey, both Coffey's physical and emotional screen presence. But the fault is not really his; in fact, it is a testament to his ability as an actor to let the true center of the film shine. It is as if Hanks realized that audiences wouldn't care about his character. Edgecombe is not the star; Coffey is. Tom Hanks' subsequent downplaying of his role was a correct move on his part, though it might seem initially that his performace is weak.
John Coffey, however, is a character that must draw the audience's attention and sympathy at all times, and Michael Clarke Duncan truly rose to the challenge. Physically Duncan IS Coffey; no other actor could have pulled off the character's sheer stature. (He was aided in this task slightly by the driector, who filmed his massive body in such a way that its inner beauty manifest itself visually. Coffey's size is as much a character in this film as the actual prison was in Shawshank, and this was one touch that the director pulled off flawlessly.) The emotional side of Coffey, however, was more difficult to convey, but Duncan carries the role well. He shows the audience from the first moment we meet John Coffey that he is, while a behemoth in size, a small, simple man who could not possibly have killed anyone. He is simply too caring to ever have done anything so brutal.
Really terrific performances come from two of the supporting cast members, helping the audience buy into the plot with their gritty characters. Both Doug Hutchison as Percy Wetmore, the new guard on the Mile, and Sam Rockwell as the mean new inmate Wild Bill push the film forward with their attention to the subtle nuances of their characters. They both share similarly sadistic characteristics, and the audience comes to see them as truly despicable, Wetmore through his delight in his role in the horrific second execution and Wild Bill through his gleeful apathy and disdain towards everyone he comes into contact with.
So The Green Mile, being such a well-acted film, does manage to engage you in its characters and the story that drives them. But it never packs the emotional wallop of Shawshank and it is definitely not a film for the ages. The Green Mile will be forgotten in a few years' time, while Shawshank's legacy will continue to live on for many years to come.
