Opens December 10, 1999

Here is what you'll read in every review of The Green Mile. (A) It sure ain't "The Shawshank Redemption." (B) It's reeaally long. (C) Tom Hanks is his standard, stoic, sensitive self. Far be it from me to fly in the face of reason, since it's all true. Now that that's out of the way, let's get down to the whys and wherefores.

Frank Darabont has waited five years since directing Shawshank and now that he's back, he's decided to direct… another Stephen King prison movie. I'm all for sticking with what you do well, but the trouble is that -- on the most basic level -- we've seen this movie already and it's the "Shawshank" version that should have won the Oscar, not this one.

Yet, it's clear that everyone here wants the gold statue for this film. The performances are so earnest and the "movie moments" so sappy that this film fairly screams out "Nominate me!" (In fact, this entire season of Oscar wanna-be's is similarly blatant.) It's all pretty frustrating too because anyone can see that this is quality filmmaking. It's beautifully shot, wonderfully acted and elegantly written. Everything is in place for a great movie, so why, you have to ask, does it fail? Partly, it's because we've seen the venue before -- done so much better -- and mostly it's because of the self-indulgence of the filmmakers, who seem to think that every moment of King's installment-based novel needs to be told on screen. Let's face it, most three-hour flicks -- epics aside -- could be told in two hours without losing much more than dead air.

Here the "dead air" is filled with lots of slice-of-life moments, at the center of which is Tom Hanks as empathetic prison guard Paul Edgecomb. Paul and his fellow guards, including Brutus Howell (David Morse), form a sensitive quadrangle of personalities. Unlike most guards, they are decent souls, who try to make the last days of the men on their death row -- called The Green Mile because of the color of the floor -- moderately pleasant. This gentle existence is constantly threatened by Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), a sadistic young guard who revels in torturing the prisoners, and by vicious inmate "Will Bill" Wharton (Sam Rockwell), whose presence constantly tests the restraint of all the guards.

Everyone's lives are shaken up when new prisoner John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) arrives, accused of the brutal rape and murder of two little girls. Paul immediately senses something special about John. The man has a gentleness and a sorrow that belies his supposedly criminal nature. Coffey's innocence slowly convinces Paul that this man could not possibly be guilty of the crimes he is said to have committed. One of the elements in the film that truly succeeds is this balance of kindness in both Coffey's and Paul's characters. Whereas Coffey is a sort of empath, able to sense the physical pain of others, Paul is something of an emotional one, a man who seeks to heal the mental anguish of his prisoners. These two men have seen pain and know emptiness; they find a kinship with one another through their mutual powers of salvation.

Fans of King's novel will recognize all the familiar elements here, including the inclusion of the little mouse named Mr. Jingles, who played a major role in the book but lacks the same poignancy in the film. What's really missing from this adaptation is the overwhelming sense of the tragic that permeated King's novel. In his writing, he managed to capture the desperation of men and paint every character in a woeful light. You could practically feel this angst leaping off the page. Yet, in the film, it all seems forced and overly elegiac, as if Darabont is saying "Hey, guys, look at all the emotion I can ring out of this story!"

Darabont's vision simply lacks the subtlety that The Shawshank Redemption possessed. Here, everything is on the surface; there are no shades of gray. This black and white approach to the story left me wondering if I had missed something in the end. Surely, I thought, there's some greater message, some imminent truth here. Sadly, there isn't. The emotional epiphany you should have as this world fades to black is oddly lacking. At the end of the film, Hank's character says that the Green Mile was very long. All I could think when I walked out of the theater was -- yeah, it sure was.