The measure of a great film I find is how well you can remember it in a few months time. If it is truly great you should be able to run through it in your mind like you were back in the theater viewing it for the first time. Other films may be great, but they can fade from ones mind as soon as you get in your car and drive on home. "The Green Mile" is a film that is as vividly with me now as it was the day it came out. I have seen it four times and it gets me emotionally each and every time with as much power as it did the first time. I may not be a religious man at all but the themes in this film, what it is really about beneath ths surface are very important.
The dialogue is some of the best I have heard in ages spoken by a cast that has not a single bad performance. Top among them are Tom Hanks and the exceptional Michael Clarke Duncan. More or less the movie could have been put into shambles by not having the right person in the part. They needed to do the impossible and find the perfect John Coffey, and in the end they did. Duncan is amazing and now perhaps he can stop his former roles of playing bodyguards and bouncers. Next of course is Tom Hanks, who it is almost a waste of words to say that he was great because that is always the case. He lets the role envelope him here and becomes Paul Edgecomb with all his heart. I highly recommend renting the DVD of this film and watching the mini documentary on the film entitled "Walking The Mile", it is worth the time.
The dialogue is some of the best I have heard in ages spoken by a cast that has not a single bad performance. Top among them are Tom Hanks and the exceptional Michael Clarke Duncan. More or less the movie could have been put into shambles by not having the right person in the part. They needed to do the impossible and find the perfect John Coffey, and in the end they did. Duncan is amazing and now perhaps he can stop his former roles of playing bodyguards and bouncers. Next of course is Tom Hanks, who it is almost a waste of words to say that he was great because that is always the case. He lets the role envelope him here and becomes Paul Edgecomb with all his heart. I highly recommend renting the DVD of this film and watching the mini documentary on the film entitled "Walking The Mile", it is worth the time.