4. The Green Mile (1999)
Paul Edgecomb begins to cry whilst watching the film Top Hat in a Louisiana nursing home. His friend Ellen shows concern and he tells her that the film reminds him of when he was a prison guard looking after death row inmates back in the 1930s. The film flips back to 1935 with Paul at the jail with his fellow wardens - Brutus, Harry and Dean. One day, John Coffey, a gentle and quietly spoken black man comes to stay on death row, accused of killing two girls. He has amazing healing powers - he resurrects a mouse and cure's Paul's urinary tract infection. Impressively, he later cures the governor's wife of terminal illness. A new member of staff arrives on Death Row - Percy, who is sadistic and bad tempered. Despised by the other prison guards, they cannot get rid of him due to his family connections to the governor. He agrees to transfer to a new post if he could manage an inmate's execution but he ballses it up deliberately. A violent and unpredictable criminal - Wild Bill, comes to death row. He grabs John's arm and John can psychically sense that he is responsible for the murders John has been sentenced for. Using his psychic powers, he gets Percy to shoot Wild Bill. Percy goes catatonic after the killing and ends up in a mental hospital. Paul interrogates John who said he was merely punishing 'them bad men'. John shows Paul what the girls went through and Paul muses on opening the door and letting John go. John, however, says he is sick and tired of all of the pain in the world and wants to die. For his last request he watches Top Hat and he is subsequently executed. We switch back to the elderly Paul who says that after the horrible experience he was transferred to a juvenile detention centre where he remained for the rest of his career. Due to psychic interaction with John, Paul is 108 years old, and the resurrected mouse is still alive. Paul has outlived all of his loved ones and thinks he was cursed for letting John die. Directed by Frank Darabont, who also brought The Shawshank Redemption to life, The Green Mile is a very lengthy, but very worthy, adaptation of Stephen King's novel of the same name. The film is a Stephen King adaptation that relies on characterisation rather than horror (like Stand By Me). Every attention is paid to nuances like changing facial expressions and the way characters behave as well as their frequently charged emotions. The film is very true to its source and Darabont's direction is flawless. Tom Hanks is great in his role as Paul, but the real revelation here is the largely unknown supporting cast who act their socks off. At three hours long, some viewers may balk at the length of the movie - believing that it will be slow and boring. The pace is in fact, quite steady and the movie never gets tedious. It was highly decorated in several film festivals and received Academy Award recognition. A very classy King adaptation.