The Green Mile

The Green Mile (1999) is Frank Darabont's follow up to The Shawshank Redemption. Another Stephen King adaptation, another prison. This time there is something supernatural inside it. Louisiana, 1935. Paul Edgecomb runs the death row block. John Coffey arrives convicted of killing two little girls: a man well over six feet tall, frightening to look at, and afraid of the dark. Paul soon notices that people Coffey touches get better. It runs 189 minutes and you feel it. The length is a choice though. The film wants to convey how time passes on death row and refuses to hurry the executions. Michael Clarke Duncan was Oscar nominated for it. Tom Hanks plays the quieter, load bearing part. There is one criticism and it is fair. Coffey is among the most discussed examples of the Black character who exists to develop white ones spiritually. The film did not see that in 1999. It is read that way now. Good for: long emotional drama, King adaptations, and prison stories. Less good for: there are execution scenes and one of them is genuinely unbearable. The murder of children is also part of the story.