The Green Mile

This makes for three straight movies set in the 1930's. I swear, I didn't even mean to do this. In fact, I had no idea this film was set in 1935. I just knew it was about a huge but gentle black guy on death row and his special mouse. In my mind, The Green Mile was just a Shawshank Redemption knock-off. Same setting (prison), writer (Stephen King), and director and screenwriter (Frank Darabont). How foolish I was to dismiss it so quickly; it's actually very unlike Shawshank in very many ways. But it is good. Really good. Tom Hanks anchored a great cast of death row guards that also featured strong performances by Tritter from House and Jack Bauer's dad from 24. Michael Clarke Duncan was the guy who earned the Oscar nod, but really, I didn't find him especially amazing in his role. But hey, props to him. I guess he deserved it. I mean, It's not like I can name five better supporting actor roles from '99 off the top of my head. A few thoughts on the movie. First, I had no idea there were any supernatural elements to it until about an hour in when they first started to occur. I'll admit, I was a little put off by this. The story, up to that point, had already been powerful and attention-grabbing. When the whole thing began to be, well, unrealistic, in the strictest sense of the word, I wasn't completely on board for the ride. The problem with most movies that try to take themselves seriously but aren't strictly fantasy or sci-fi is that oftentimes there's little to no explanation for the supernatural things that have occurred. Like in Benjamin Button. God, did I hate Benjamin Button. But this flick is no Benjamin Button. Thank God. (Have I mentioned how terrible Benjamin Button was?) Another thing this movie does is force the viewer to debate capital punishment on an internal level. The electric chair - who came up with it? It seems one of the most brutal forms of execution imaginable, even when everything goes according to plan. I know lethal injection wasn't really around yet in the 1930's, but come on, shocking somebody for several seconds of agony until they're dead? Is that really even remotely humane? A bullet to the back of the head would be far less grotesque, and that's saying plenty. Besides, this movie doesn't depict the electric chair victims as monstrous murderers at all. There's no getting around it... of the four inmates on Death Row, you only truly feel hatred for one of them. And yes, sure, it helps that the movie leaves out the reasons for their being in Death Row in the first place, despite running more than three hours in length. And that's another thing. I won't bitch about the movie being 188 minutes in length, but did it really need to come on two DVDs? I felt like I was watching something on VHS when, unexpectedly, about two hours into the film, it cut away and back to the main menu. No "please insert Disc 2" message or anything. It took me a few moments to figure out what to do. I mean, come on. A DVD disc offers far more capacity than the guys who made this one cared to use effectively. Embarrassing. Still, all in all, the movie was provocative and sad. Not the greatest movie I've ever seen, but one of the better ones, for sure. Check it out if you've got the time and the desire.