Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Tom Hanks
Michael Clarke Duncan
Sam Rockwell
David Morse (An oh-yeah-that-guy kind of actor)
Directed by:
Frank Darabont
I do that a lot. I finish a novel and I go see the movie right after. Why do I review the same story two days in a row? Well, know that Stephen King and Frank Darabont are one successful team. IMDB.com ranks Shawshank Redeption as the best movie of all time. Knowing that was a very short novella that turned into a magical flick, how do they fare with a magical book? Let's find out.
STORYTELLING
Don't want to repeat myself here, so I'll keep it short and work on the differences. Paul Edgecombe (Hanks) is the supervisor of Cell Block E of Cold Mountain Penitentiary, also known as death row. His tightly knit team is struggling with a cocky, macabre but connected kid named Percy Whetmore (Doug Hutchison). Everything will change though when a new, gigantic inmate with healing power named John Coffey (Clarke Duncan) will land on the block for an atrocious murder.
Darabont made the backstory of Old Paul, writing his memoir, a lot lighter. As the tale in the novel alternates from Old Paul point of view to the story perspective, in the movie, Paul is telling his life story to his friend Elaine without any interruptions or abusive nurses. He's an old and isolated man. This is effective skimming by Darabont, who dynamites over a hundred pages from the novel without touching the core of the story.
Other than that, there is a little more emphasis on John Coffey and his silent suffering and the story feels a little constricted in time, the way Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings feel compared to the novel. Free form the old man writing perspective, Darabont is able to offer a tighter narrative though, which fits the movie better than hypothetical geriatric memories.
DIRECTION
As usual, Darabont takes a sober, but honest approach to Stephen King's storytelling. He doesn't hide anything from the raw horror of living day to day on death row. That, from an inmate or a guard perspective. The executions are show in all their gruesomeness, but there is a respect for death and suffering shown by King and Darabont. It's an interesting point of view shown because it's about the inmates and their struggle against the clock, more than the victims. The Green Mile shows that on death row, the playing field is leveled and everybody is quiet, tiny and scared. Even giants.
There are a few tacky special effects in the John Coffey scenes, that are delibrate choices made by Darabont (the novel doesn't describe anything THAT clear), which are a bit annoying, but they do not hamper the human drama shown on screen. I would've preferred a more toned-down approach to the miracle scenes, but overall, it doesn't kill the mood.
ACTING
Not sure who did the casting there, but he made an amazing job. Tom Hanks makes an amazing portrayal of Paul Edgecombe, carrying the soft hand of a timid but firm supervisor into the screen. David Morse is also showing the righteousness of Brutus Howell in a convincing and very subtle way.
My prize goes to Sam Rockwell though who transforms an average character into a great one by showing the dirty, uncontrollable side of William Wharton on screen. His performence is so convincing that when I'll come back to the novel I'll be able to appreciate the character more. Michael Clarke Duncan had the hard draw for John Coffey. He is a little heavy handed, but he keeps within the limits of good taste. He was the perfect physical cast for Coffey, but he had hard time playing such a down-tuned, haunting character.
Doug Hutchison is also good as Percy, transferring the alien, spoiled and spiteful character on screen, but Darabont erased Percy a little bit to make him more believable, more cinematic.
INTEREST
The Green Mile, despite having the best intentions, is a little Hollywoodian. It's a three hours flick that doesn't feel its lenght, but the Coffey miracle scenes and Michael Clarke Duncan's heavy handed acting are sucking a little bit of magic away from Stephen King's novel. I'll come back to the story, probably many times, but the novel form is a lot richer and a lot more powerful than the movie. It's not a bad film, it's a film hard to forget, but it's a complete triumph.
SCORE: B+
