| THE 'THAT GUY' FEATURED FILM OF THE WEEK |
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| July 21, 2001 |
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| THE GREEN MILE (1999) Directed by Frank Darabont Written by Frank Darabont, based on the novel by Stephen King CAST Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecomb David Morse as Brutus "Brutal" Howell Bonnie Hunt as Jan Edgecomb Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey James Cromwell as Warden Hal Moores Michael Jeter as Eduard Delacroix Graham Greene as Arlen Bitterbuck Doug Hutchison as Percy Wetmore Sam Rockwell as "Wild Bill" Wharton Barry Pepper as Dean Stanton NOTE: Links for David Morse and Sam Rockwell are not yet active |
| WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS "On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job?" As talented and terrifyingly prolific as he is, there are certain story ideas we just don't associate with Stephen King. Rabid dogs, small-town vampires, mind-reading aliens, croquet mallet-wielding crazed caretakers, teenage girls with the world's worst case of PMS, those are kind of things we associate with Stephen King. Life-affirming stories about healing and redemption in a Depression-era Louisiana prison? Nope, doesn't sound like any Stephen King we've ever read. Finally proving his worth to the critics (and making up to his fans for Dolores Claiborne and Gerald's Game), Stephen King wrote and published The Green Mile in 1996. In a marketing gimmick many thought was new but was actually created during the Victorian Era, the book was published in six separate segments consisting of about 100 pages each. Demand for each consecutive segment was so high that many bookstores sold out copies on pre-order, and when the story was completed, it ended up being one of King's best works, a touching, beautifully written, more than slightly spiritual tale that you had to read all over again once you had all the segments together. |
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| It was also a novel ripe for movie adaptation. Thankfully, so as to avoid another Children of the Corn or, God forbid, Maximum Overdrive, Frank Darabont was chosen to write the screenplay for and direct the film adaptation of The Green Mile. Frank Darabont, as you may remember, made hisdirecting debut bringing another King story to the screen as The Shawshank Redemption, an unforgettable prison drama sorely underrated by critics and audiences alike. The movies are somewhat similar in style and flavor, and it's interesting that Darabont, a relative newcomer who was previously best known for writing the script for Nightmare on Elm Street 3, would be at the helm for both. The studio took a big risk hiring him--they could have ended up with another Mangler. The film opens in the present, with a framing device that takes place in a nursing home. Paul Edgecomb, an elderly man of indeterminate age, is brought to tears by a viewing of Fred Astaire's classic Top Hat, and is coaxed by a lady friend to tell of an incident that changed his life forever (literally, you'll see what I mean), all the way back in 1935. Paul nearly sixty-five years earlier is played by Tom Hanks, whose portrayal of a decent, upstanding, almost flawlessly good-hearted man would seem almost redundant if he wasn't so perfect for the role. Paul is head guard in cell block E of Cold Mountain Penitentiary in Louisiana. Cell block E is death row, nicknamed "the Green Mile" by the guards and inmates because of the green linoleum floor leading to the electric chair. For the most part, the Mile is a quiet place to work, with initially only two prisoners awaiting execution, a Native American named Arlen Bitterbuck (Graham Greene), and a Cajun named Eduard Delacroix (Michael Jeter). Over time, Paul and his co-workers, namely Brutus |
| And speaking of sadistic...Paul's quiet, uneventful working life is soon hampered by a new co-worker, a younger guard by the name of Percy Wetmore (skin-peelingly evil Doug Hutchison). Percy doesn't follow Paul's humane treatment of the prisoners--when he's told that he should think of the Mile as an intensive care ward, Percy sneers and replies, "I think of it as a bucket of piss to drown rats in." He flaunts his familial connection to the governor, has no interest in working in the Mile for any other reason than to actually witness an execution, and delights in torturing the prisoners, especially the diminutive Delacroix. Two new inmates arrive on the Mile in the same week--the first is John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), an enormous black man convicted of the brutal murder of two little girls. Coffey seems like a bit of a contradiction: despite his hideous crime, he's soft-spoken, complacent, and afraid of the dark. In contrast is the second inmate, "Wild Bill" Wharton (Sam Rockwell), who can best be described as the redneck from Hell, bad teeth, cheap tattoos and all. Wharton is trouble for the guards from the get-go, punching Paul in the groin (just as he's suffering from a particularly nasty urinary tract infection), nearly strangling Dean, and manhandling and threatening to rape Percy, who promptly pees his pants. Despite these interesting new members of the floor, life continues as normal on the Mile for a while. Bitterbuck is executed (an "execution rehearsal" scene, with Harry Dean Stanton as prison trusty "Old Toot Toot" is a funny moment in an otherwise somber film), the guards are frequently forced to punish Wharton for his various misdeeds by putting him in a straitjacket and hosing him with cold water, Paul develops an interest in finding out more about John Coffey, and Delacroix discovers and makes a pet out of a tiny mouse that he calls Mr. Jingles. The presence of Mr. Jingles, though mostly tolerated and even encouraged somewhat by the other guards, infuriates Percy, who goes to ridiculous lengths to kill it, including throwing his nightstick at it with (almost) deadly precision, tearing apart a storage room looking for it, and finally, stomping it to death in front of Delacroix, delighting in his cries. |
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| While Delacroix despairs over the loss of his little pet, John Coffey takes the mouse's flattened body in his hand and miraculously revives it to perfect condition. Coffey has no explanation for what he's just done, but the other guards are in awe of it, except for Percy, who just seems pissed that the creature he tried so hard to destroy is immediately brought back to life. It seems that Coffey's healing abilities are not limited to just animals--distracted by the misery of his urinary tract infection, Paul allows himself to be yanked up against the bars of Coffey's cell. It looks as if some hanky-panky is afoot when Coffey grabs Paul by the twig and berries, but all he wants to do is draw the pain and sickness out of Paul's body, literally spitting it out in a thick, ugly cloud of black flies. Newly rejuvenated after the incident, Paul promptly goes home and makes up for lost time with his wife, Jan (Bonnie Hunt). Delacroix's number is called next, and someone makes the terrible judgment of allowing Percy to be in charge of his execution. Percy, who's had it in for Delacroix ever since the prisoner mocked him for wetting his pants in front of everybody, "accidentally" forgets a key step in the preparations for execution in the electric chair--soaking a sponge in water before placing it on the condemned man's head, thus more evenly disbursing the electricity and keeping the death quick and humane. The sponge is dry when it's placed on Delacroix's head, and he literally fries like a pork sausage, screaming and convulsing for what seems like hours. The other guards are appalled, the witnesses are shocked and sickened, and even Percy looks a little green around the gills. Be forewarned--this is probably one of the most graphic depictions of execution ever filmed. Like in Tim Robbins's Dead Man Walking, Frank Darabont's views on the death penalty ring loud and clear in The Green Mile, but even if you're a death penalty supporter (like Your Correspondent), it's still a chore to sit through. |
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| Paul and the other guards remain surprisingly supportive of Percy when Warden Moores (James Cromwell) demands to know who is responsible for the grotesque incident, not out of any sort of loyalty to him, but because they'll find their own ways to punish him later. The two remaining prisoners on the Mile are Wild Bill and John Coffey, who seems to know more about Wild Bill than he's willing to say, but Paul is too busy trying to prove Coffey innocent of his crime. He visits a newspaper reporter (Gary Sinise in a cameo appearance), one of the few supporters Coffey had in court,who tells him that there was very little evidence linking Coffey to the murders of the little girls, other than being found sobbing over their battered bodies. However, being that Coffey was a black man accused of killing two white children, that was enough to convict him (indeed, in real life he probably would have been shot or lynched on the spot). Paul's belief that Coffey is innocent is strengthened further when he, Brutus, and Harry smuggle him out of the prison to Warden Moores's house. Moores's wife, Melinda (Patricia Clarkson), is dying a slow, ugly death from a brain tumor, and when Coffey draws the illness out of her, it's almost too much for him to bear. Melinda immediately recovers, and tells Coffey, "I dreamed of you. I dreamed you were wandering in the dark, and so was I. We found each other. We found each other in the dark." |
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| By the time they return to the prison, Coffey is still unable to release the poison he drew out of Melinda's body, until he finds a perfect outlet for it. He grabs Percy and transfers it over to him, sending Percy into irreversible catatonia--but not before he gives Wild Bill Wharton a few extra holes with his service revolver. Paul is shocked that Coffey's gift could lead to such a violent turn of events, but is given some enlightenment by Coffey's mystical hands--he "sees" that Wild Bill was the one responsible for the little girls' deaths, and that Coffey was found wailing over their bodies because he had arrived too late to "take it back". Enlightenment is not the only thing Coffey gives Paul, as we soon find out. |
| "Brutal" Howell (David Morse), Dean Stanton (Barry Pepper), and Harry Terwilliger (Jeffrey DeMunn) have developed a rapport with the prisoners, and true, they do seem to go out of their way to be respectful and sympathetic to them, but their logic makes an enlightened, if not sadly archaic sort of sense. These men are literally a few steps away from death, and face further punishment in the afterlife. To taunt them and abuse them further brings you down a few more levels in humanity, and is just plain sadistic. |
| Sadly, Paul and the others realize that they can't stop the inevitable, that there is no way they can convince anyone of Coffey's gifts, or that he should be given a stay of execution. Coffey seems resigned to his fate, and soon it's his turn to walk down the Mile. As Coffey goes to the electric chair, there is no surprise last minute reprieve, no miraculous bolt of lightning setting him free. John Coffey just dies, and life continues on the Mile. At the end, we realize that Coffey did more than heal Paul's illness and allow Paul to learn the truth behind his conviction: he healed Paul so well that he is now able to live much longer than the average person, never getting sick, never getting hurt. In the present, Paul is now 104 years old, alone in the world but for one companion...Eduard Delacroix's pet mouse, Mr. Jingles, a little older looking, a little slow, but still alive. |
| The novel is usually the first thing to go out the window when it's brought to the screen, but in The Green Mile Frank Darabont is admirably faithful to the setting, the events, the characters, and even the dialogue. The only thing that really suffers is the "Old Paul" framing device, used only at the beginning and the end of the film to establish that he is far more older than we realize. In the book, the framing device was used throughout the entire story, as Paul contends with a cruel nursing home attendant that bears an eerie resemblance to Percy Wetmore, develops a romance with another resident, and lets the reader know that Coffey's gift is as much a curse, as when he is the only survivor of a horrific bus crash that kills his beloved wife. In this reader's opinion, it's perhaps the most tragic event in the story, but it's understandably left out of the film for time purposes. Darabont should be commended for the near-perfect adaptation of the novel, and for creating a thoroughly believable setting for the events, but casting director Mali Finn is most deserving of praise (she also cast Titanic and The Matrix). Your Correspondent has seen many, many films in her lifetime, and never has she seen such a film so perfectly cast as The Green Mile. Who better to play a decent man battling between virtue and duty than Tom Hanks? Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey fills the screen both literally and figuratively, perfectly playing a docile child trapped in a powerful body, while David Morse gives just the right mixture of reserved calm and great strength as Brutus. However, it's Doug Hutchison, Sam Rockwell, and Michael Jeter who seem to have literally walked out of the pages of the book onto the screen. Your Correspondent was not familiar with Hutchison and Rockwell before watching The Green Mile, but upon re-reading the book afterwards, was amazed by how perfectly suited they were to the roles. As for Michael Jeter, Your Correspondent actually pictured him in the role of Eduard Delacroix while reading the book for the first time. |
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| True, the message in The Green Mile is a bit obvious and ham-handed at times. True, the movie wouldn't have suffered any if it was cut by a half hour or so.True, the line between the good guys and the bad guys is drawn a little too clearly, and the bad characters are far less developed than the good (though the fact that you hate Percy and Wild Bill proves some character development had to take place--at least you feel some emotion for them, as opposed to faceless villains like Jason or Michael Myers). True, Stephen King probably should have chosen a different name for his central character besides John Coffey, thus giving him the same initials as another benevolent healer who died for our sins. If a dollar was given to the government for every critic who thought they were the first to make that connection, we'd probably be able to balance the budget by now--then again, if the character had been named "Oliver Sampson", the critics probably would have implied it to mean "Our Savior". What most of the critics seemed to forget is that the story is both a morality play and a fable of sorts, and that John Coffey might as well be held in the same regard as a Paul Bunyan or John Henry--a not entirely believable but heroic character that sticks around just long enough to teach regular folks a valuable lesson. In the case of The Green Mile, it's that no matter what the sum of our character is, or how many good and evil deeds we've performed in life--in death we're all the same. "We each owe a death, there are no exceptions," the older Paul says, "But sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long." DID YOU KNOW... --Charles Dickens, who Stephen King names as one of his literary inspirations, originated the idea of the "serial" novel, one continuous story broken up into several separate installments. The installments back then were referred to as "penny dreadfuls". --It took Frank Darabont only eight weeks to write the screenplay. --Tom Hanks was originally intended to portray his character at age 104, but Frank Darabont was never satisfied with the old age makeup created for Hanks, so actor Dabbs Greer was hired to portray the older Paul instead. --Harry Dean Stanton appears as prison trusty Old Toot-Toot. Jeffrey DeMunn portrayed a character named Harry, while Barry Pepper's character was named Dean Stanton. --Michael Clarke Duncan was suggested for the role of John Coffey by his Armageddon co-star Bruce Willis. --Jeffrey DeMunn, William Sadler, who portrayed the father of the murdered girls, and Brian Libby, who portrayed Sheriff McGee, all appeared in The Shawshank Redemption. --Though the film takes place in Louisiana, most of it was actually shot at the no longer operating Tennessee State Penitentiary. --David Morse appeared in a TV movie adaptation of Stephen King's The Langoliers, and stars in the upcoming film adapation of King's Hearts in Atlantis. Harry Dean Stanton appeared in the film adapation of King's Christine. --Doug Hutchison wrote a book about his experiences filming The Green Mile, due to be published shortly. Photos courtesy of the Official Green Mile Website |
| SOUND BITES WARNING: Some of these soundbites contain adult language Percy shows he's not a team player Paul Edgecomb: "You'd do better to think of this place like it's an intensive care ward of a hospital." Percy Wetmore: "I think of it as a bucket of piss to drown rats in, that's all. Anybody doesn't like it, hmm? You can kiss my ass." Introducing the one, the only... Paul Edgecomb: "Your name is John Coffey." John Coffey: "Yes, sir, boss. Like the drink, only not spelled the same." Paul Edgecomb: "Oh, you can spell, can you?" John Coffey: "Just my name, boss. J...O..." Paul Edgecomb: "My name is Paul Edgecomb." Old Toot-Toot brings a little levity to an execution rehearsal Brutus Howell: "Arlen Bitterbuck, you have been condemned to die by a jury of your peers, sentence imposed by a judge in good standing in this state. Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out?" Old Toot-Toot: "Yeah. I wanna fried chicken dinner with gravy on the taters. And I wanna shit in your hat. And I got to have Mae West sit on my face cause I'm one horny motherfucker." Paul Edgecomb will never have to worry about another urinary tract infection again Paul Edgecomb: "What did you just do to me?" John Coffey: "I helped it. Didn't I help it? I just took it back's all. Awful tired now, boss. Dog tired." CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE FILM INFORMATION CLICK HERE FOR 'THAT GUY' FEATURED FILM ARCHIVES |
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