Movie Review – The Green Mile

I had hardly watched any films when I watched The Shawshank Redemption. It was during the days when I couldn’t sit through movies which are long and boring. And as far as I remember it was the first lengthy movie which I watched. I didn’t have any opinion though after watching the movie. Only after sometime when I came to know that there is something called as imdb and it stands number one in the list of greatest movies of all time I came to know that I had watched a worthy movie. A few years later when I think about the movie I couldn’t find anything special for that to be at number one. And when I watched The Green Mile now it made me remember those days when I used to love Tom Hanks so much and the jail atmosphere made me remember The Shawshank Redemption. With those little bit of memories of the past I would rate The Green Mile higher than that of Shawshank Redemption. And watching Tom Hanks after a very long time I must say I was fond.

Frank Darabont seems to be having a fondness for Prison like me. I somehow like Prison movies. Not those mad heroic prison break movies but the movies which show humanness in prison. One more reason for me to like Virumandi, my favorite Kamals directional feature. The movie takes place mostly in prison except for the first and last few minutes. Of all the things I must appreciate Frank Darabont’s confidence. If it had been a movie which had happened in prison without any magical elements it’d still have been a good movie but because of the little bit fantasy thrown to us this movie becomes magical. It is confusing, yes as to why this must have happened but it gives us a new sort of experience which we’ve never had before. Realism plus fantasy. And it works quite well otherwise we would have easily brushed this off saying the movie is unrealistic.

We see five guys who are more like a family. Paul, Brutus, Harry and Dean along with sadistic Percy form a team of guys who supervise prison inmates who are to be electrocuted. Percy is the guy who irritates the inmates as well as the guards there in the prison so he’s hated unanimously. He gets his due from the giant John Coffey for all his deeds. John Coffey is the guy who is sentenced to death because citing that he has raped and killed a couple of kids but the guards who have a close watch of him get to know his magical powers and sensitive nature. Paul gets to see John’s memory and knows the truth of his innocence but as he doesn’t have any proof he has to carry on with his task.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon this film definitely worked for me. When I say this as a lazy Sunday afternoon film I don’t wish to analyze. It’d be left good as such.