The Green Mile, based on novel by Stephen King

The Green Mile, based on novel by Stephen King

The public has rated this motion picture as one of the best ever made, on the popularity chart available on the IMDB site, it is placed at number 32.

The critics have also loved this film, nominated for four Oscars and other prestigious awards, a feature with a very unusual story that you either like or dismiss as preposterous.

The Green Mile has a stellar cast, headed by Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecomb, with another Oscar winner, Sam Rockwell as "Wild Bill" Wharton, but the the one who steals the show is Michael Clarke Duncan in the role of John Coffey.

The characters involved in this narrative are connected with Death Row, either as inmates waiting for the electric chair to kill them, or as guards that keep the prisoners locked in this penitentiary, awaiting their  execution.

Some of the condemned are terrible human beings, like Wild Bill, but none seems to be as awful as Percy Wetmore, who is one of the guards, inviting the audience to meditate on how relative Justice, guilt, punishment, mercy can be, for this is an individual who deserves the most fierce retribution and he is out, free, while the innocent John Coffey is waiting for his death, when he is one the kindest, most special, gifted humans alive - or dead for that matter.

It is true that this is where we enter an awkward territory, for this hero has Supernatural powers...he will heal a sick woman, return a dead mouse from the dead and more.

What separates this wonderful film from light fare like Iron Man, Avengers and other such features with comic books characters is the tone, the seriousness, solidity of the narrative, the strength of the characters, the worthwhile themes and the restrained treatment of the Supernatural part of the fiction.

John Coffey performs some otherworldly tricks- the ones aforementioned- but this is just a small fragment of a rather long and worthwhile motion picture.

Besides, the use of new DNA tests and other modern forensic science methods have demonstrated that even people of Death Row have been innocent of the murders for which they were condemned to die, therefore the idea of the innocent victim is not absurd.

The next step is to see how kind and gentle this prisoner is and then observe that his presence has a soothing quality, even when perceived through the medium of the television film.

And let us think of another "impossible outcome" , this time with a very negative connotation...

The arrival of Trump at the helm of the civilized world.

This sounds as outlandish as a prisoner curing cancer by touch...well, maybe not the dead mouse brought to life, but it is close.

Even if The Green Mile is mainstream and does not qualify as a horror movie, it is still has some very gruesome scenes.

Take the execution of a prisoner, assigned to the care of the Devil aka Percy Wetmore, who is so cruel and sadistic that he does not want the poor condemned man to just die, but he wants to torture him.

Therefore, at the crucial moment, when he has to soak a sponge in water to allow electro to flow from the installation into the body of the sentenced inmate, the despicable villain decides to place a dry thing between the head and the source of death.

The result is terrifying and appalling, for the poor human being is set on fire, because the whole thing is not operating as it should and the convulsions, the pain, the shouts, the chaos are overwhelmingly and abhorrent.

There is a sort of Payback for the abjection of this loathsome, inhuman creature, when the two worst personages on stage confront each other and inflict some well deserved punishment on the two Devilish apparitions on Death Row.

The film is long, complex, worthwhile, deep, entertaining and unexpected.

It is a remarkable, memorable achievement.