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Movie Reviews
Women in Prison
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The Green Mile (1999) |
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| Tom Hanks gives yet another memorable performance. |
Well-meaning and well-acted, but also ponderous and ultimately shallow, The Green Mile is a movie that feels and thinks it is bigger than it is. It is an epic of the mundane, and would have been much better had the filmmakers realized the quiet dignity and limited scope of what they had to offer. Therein really lies the problem. The movie falls short of its ambitions, but scaled back in length and with a more modest tone, it would have been a wonderful little movie, a tight character study that would have had a better claim on being one of the best movies of the year. I should note that I often enjoy quiet, well-acted movies. I think Before Sunrise (1995) is a wonderful movie, I whole-heartedly enjoyed Nobody's Fool (1994), I think a Simple Plan (1998) was one of the ten best movies of the 1990s... I mean, each would have been better with some prison scenes, but they were good nonetheless. Why? Because each accepted that the essence of what they had to offer rested with the nature of the characters. The Green Mile isn't satisfied with that. It thinks it wants to make big statements about the nature of faith, the possibility of redemption, and the responsibilities of authority. As a result, it misuses strong performances by Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, and Tom Hanks.
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| E Block is home of the Green Mile. |
The movie begins and ends with completely unnecessary framing sequences set in the present. The bulk of the movie is told as a flashback set in the 1930s. Setting the movie in the 1930s and cutting out the beginning and end would have been much more effective. The Green Mile tells the story of a year in the lives (and deaths) of guards and inmates on a death row in a Louisiana prison. The Green Mile refers to the name of the death row because of its green floors. Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecomb, a man of such dignity and good will that it is difficult to imagine how he ended up a prison guard, much less chief executioner of the state. Though Hanks is solid in the role, it isn't much of a stretch for him. He's the Jimmy Stewart of our era (and no, I don't think the comparison demeans Stewart in any way), and is able to play either romantic leads or responsible everymans in his sleep. I hope that as he gets older, Hanks is willing explore darker roles, much as Stewart did in such movies as Vertigo (1958).
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| "Brutal" Howell, a man with an oddly inappropriate nickname. |
David Morse plays Brutus "Brutal" Howell, a bear of a man, whose temperament belies his nickname. Brutal and Edgecomb run a kinder, gentler, death row. Their goal is to make the condemned men pass the last days in a respectable, dignified manner. Why do they care so much about a group of men whose sole common characteristic is having committed acts so heinous as to warrant the death sentence? We never get a direct answer. At times Edgecomb seems to suggest that it is simply a matter of self-preservation for the guards. After all, there is nothing more dangerous than a bunch of criminals with nothing left to lose. But it is clearly more than that. Edgecomb is also simply a decent and humane person. For men like Edgecomb and Brutal mistreating the prisoners is inconceivable.
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| The giant John Coffey shakes hands with Paul Edgecomb as the other guards look on apprehensively. |
Their routine is overturned by the arrival of three men, one is a runty guard, the second is a giant prisoner, the third is a sociopathic killer. The guard (Percy Wetmore, played by Doug Hutchison) is a coward and a sadist. He owes his position to political connections, and his fondest wish is to see a man die up close. Part of the challenge for Edgecomb is reforming Percy, but it is a challenge he cannot meet given the fundamental defects of Percy's soul. In Edgecomb's words, Percy "is mean, careless, and stupid." Yup. And boring. He doesn't grow. He doesn't learn. He just is. What's the point? Yes, of course, bad, stupid, evil people exist, but why do I want to see them in a movie? He's there to serve as "opposition" which creates "conflict" and can lead to a satisfying "resolution." Screenwriting 101 in action. But he's an empty character, so unalterably evil that we feel more relief at his later demise than any other emotion. I'm sort of surprised Hutchison took the role. It is a potential career destroyer if people begin to identify him with the character. Anyway, Percy causes trouble and Edgecomb tries to limit his impact.
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| Michael Clarke Duncan gives a breakthrough performance... although I wonder how many dramatic roles he'll get given his size. |
More interesting is the first new prisoner. Michael Clarke Duncan plays John Coffey, a seemingly simple-minded, giant, black man found guilty of the rape and murder of two little white girls. Needless to say, he would never have survived long enough to be sentenced to death in real life; even the accusation of such a crime in Louisiana in 1935 would certainly have gotten him lynched summarily. The movie telegraphs Coffey's innocence right from the start. He is respectful and obviously gentle. His guilt is scarcely conceivable. Would the movie have been better for allowing some doubt in the matter at least early on? I don't know. Coffey's initials are not accidental, of course, and in some ways I think this fact speaks volumes about the movie's miscalculation. Yes, Coffey is capable of miracles, specifically healing the sick. But does that make Coffey a Christ-like character? Only at the most superficial level. Jesus did not just perform miscellaneous miracles. He enunciated a political philosophy (albeit sometimes ambiguously), defined a new system of ethics, and established a loyal band of followers determined to spread His gospel. So the fact that Coffey cures Edgecomb of a urinary tract infection, raises a mouse from the dead, and can see into the abyss of evil men's souls is not that earth shaking. Coffey is a faith-healer version of Christ.
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| "Wild Bill" (right) terrorizes the sadistic and cowardly Percy (left). |
The other new prisoner is William "Wild Bill" Wharton (Sam Wharton). "Wild Bill" is, not to put too fine a point on it, a sociopath. He's mean, violent, and crazy. He torments the other prisoners and the guards, and threatens to undermine Edgecomb's efforts at maintaining a calm environment. His role is largely to ratchet up tension, and his presence ultimately serves to tie everything up in a neat little bow... but I'll get to that later.
Oh yeah, there is also a mouse -- a "remarkable mouse" as described by the DVD box -- Mr. Jingles. Have I, um, ever mentioned my position on movies with animals in them? Just for the record, I think they suck. Don't get me wrong, I like pets as much as the next guy (especially the Penthouse kind... bada bing), but animals almost never work in movies for adults. And here, the mouse is mostly around for comic relief. The mouse certainly could have been cut out without harming the narrative flow. Indeed, the mouse's reappearance at the end of the movie is, um, laughable and detracts from the solemn feel the movie is trying to develop.
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| Mr. Jingles returns in Green Mile 2: The Search for Cheese (2001). |
Okay, so what's the plot? Well, we have a dual plot. On one hand, Edgecomb tries to rid himself of Percy, which is difficult given Percy's political connections. Finally, Edgecomb gives in to Percy's desire to preside over an execution with disastrous results. Percy sadistically fails to prepare the prisoner properly and as a result cooks him to death rather than electrocuting him. The scene goes on and on, provided a nasty indictment of the electric chair, and also ratcheting up tension for the climactic scene involving Coffey. Early on Edgecomb realizes that Coffey is unique. He even tracks down Coffey's attorney, but the evidence seems overwhelming. Coffey, after all, was found cradling the dead girls and covered in their blood. In his defense, Coffey cryptically claims that he was trying to "take it back." Later we learn what that means. Coffey has the power to heal the sick, a miracle he performs on several occasions, ridding Edgecomb of a urinary tract infection, raising Mr. Jingles from the grave after Percy stomps the little rodent, and curing the warden's wife of a brain tumor.
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| Coffey heals the sicks, and then expels the illness. |
Coffey's power requires him to "swallow" the disease before exhaling it as a cloud of flickering particles. The metaphysics of all this is quite fuzzy. Coffey isn't quite taking the disease or suffering on himself, and although the process exhausts him, he seems to suffer no other ill-effects. Curing the sick is sort of what he does; it isn't a sacrifice he makes on behalf of others. The process, however, is important because it sets up the climactic moment where Coffey keeps the malignancy he takes from the warden's wife and expels it into Percy's lungs. Apparently, this allows Coffey to direct Percy to shoot "Wild Bill" before lapsing into a vegetative state, thus neatly killing two birds with one stone. Coffey explains his actions to Edgecomb by showing him what Coffey was able to see within "Wild Bill," namely his brutal assault on the two girls for which Coffey is sentenced to die. This all wraps things up nicely in a way, but is troubling in another. One part of the problem is the simple convenience of it all. The ease with which Coffey rids Edgecomb of both Percy and "Wild Bill" smacks of a deus ex machina... quite literally given the movie's not too subtle hints about the nature of Coffey's powers. Just as importantly, however, I wonder at the ethic suggested by Coffey's role as judge, jury, and executioner. This is particularly problematic in the case of Percy, a vile creature for sure, but deserving of death? (Percy isn't killed precisely, but seems to end up brain dead.) I don't know. It seems to me that a movie that spends three hours with the guards and prisoners on a death row ought to make a clearer statement on the death penalty.
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| Coffey performing a miracle... or at least holding a lightbulb. |
The second half of the plot concerns the rapidly approaching moment of Coffey's own execution. Edgecomb by this point is convinced not only that Coffey is innocent, but also that he is a messenger of sorts from God. Edgecomb does not want to have to answer for killing Coffey by saying that he was just doing his job. He offers Coffey a chance to escape, but Coffey turns it down saying he is too tired and weary of seeing suffering and cruelty around him. So, in an emotional scene, Edgecomb and his men put Coffey to death. Again, this is disturbing, but not in the way the filmmakers might have hoped. First of all, I am not sure I see how giving Coffey a choice ultimately excuses Edgecomb's act. Edgecomb could have refused to execute Coffey. He could have pressured him to escape. He could have resigned, although presumably his concern was that whomever took his place would execute Coffey anyway but with less dignity. But isn't that a pretty weak argument? Shouldn't Edgecomb, now recognizing Coffey's quasi-divinity, have done more? And what of Coffey... what do we make of his willingness to surrender, to effectively commit suicide? What does that say about his responsibilities to make use of his gifts? And if he is a divine being, then is this a statement of God's abandonment of Man? Some might argue that I am asking too much of a movie to have a consistent or coherent theology, but I'm not the one who introduced these themes, the filmmakers did. This isn't like It's a Wonderful Life (1946) where the angels are largely a plot device. It doesn't really matter whether Clarence is a real angel or not, right? But here, Coffey's gifts and Edgecomb's recognition of them is the central development in the plot.
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| Edgecomb and Brutal are surprisingly unchanged despite seeing a miracle. |
Ultimately, what this gets down to is that the characters don't develop much. Edgecomb isn't a cynic who has his faith in life renewed. The tagline claims that "Paul Edgecomb didn't believe in miracles. Until the day he met one." Who says he didn't believe in miracles? We have no evidence of that. He starts off a kind, decent, responsible man, and ends up the same. Sure, at the end he decides to get out of the execution game and work in a juvenile prison instead trying to help kids avoid ending up on death row, but that's all. Seems a pretty minor change and a pretty obvious realization, no? Certain this isn't the kind of life-altering change we might expect from coming in close contact with a miracle.
What gets me is that the backstory is amazing interesting to begin with. How did Edgecomb develop his commitment to providing convicted killers with a dignified end? There is a wonderful character study here without all the forced plot devices. A movie like this would be better off worrying less about a big plot, and focusing more on the characters and the setting.
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| In the end, do we even know what the filmmakers think about the death penalty? |
Don't get me wrong. This is a good movie. Not a great movie, but a good movie. The cast is superb on the whole. But the movie bites off more than it can chew. It gives the illusion of profundity without the substance. As a prison movie it is particularly interesting because it makes the guards the central characters rather than the prisoners. As you probably know, this is quite rare, and it is a refreshing change. I especially like the way Edgecomb and the others see their roles... it isn't just a job for them and the prisoners are not just dangers to be controlled. The guards here deal with the prisoners as human beings, although there does remain a gap between the two. This relationship is well-done, although in a weird way I suspect the more stereotypical view of guards and inmates as having a purely instrumental relationship is probably closer to the mark in real life.
Finally, I wonder about Darabont's apparent fascination with prison. With the success of The Green Mile and the Shawshank Redemption (1994), Darabont is certainly a marketable commodity. It will be interesting to see what he does next. He has a real touch with human relationship (as also demonstrated in the superior Shawshank), so hopefully he will stick to that rather than dabble in religion and metaphysics... better to leave that stuff to people like Martin Scorsese.
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(3.5 out of 5)