“Based on a book by Stephen King”. Not a very promising tagline, right? Of all the Stephen King films there are only two or three worth watching. Especially those who King wrote the actual script for are horrid.
Anyway, this is the reason that I never bothered to watch The Green Mile until a copy was put into my hands. Three hours?! Well, I have watched the whole thing, but I am not particularly impressed. The film is about section E of an American prison in 1935 which is the section for prisoners waiting to be fried on the electric chair. Tom Hanks (not exactly my favourite actor) plays the main character Paul Edgecomb who is head of the section and suffers from a serious inflammation of the bladder. When a new prisoner is brought to “the green mile” everybody is impressed by the size of the feebleminded John Coffey who is sentenced for the brutal killing of two young girls. Coffey turns out to have a curing gift and after curing Edgecomb and revive an impudent mouse, he is taken out of prison to also cure the bosses wifes braintumor. In the process Coffey also gets rid off two “bad men” in prison, one fellow prisoner, one pain-in-the-ass guard.
However “The Green Mile” fortunately didn’t turn out in an over-paranormal monstrosity and it is entertaining, it is really nothing special. Also I think that they could have easily told the story in two hours or less.