Word: edgecombe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Southern prison's death row, where the only recreation is watching a mouse commandeer the corridor. Enter a new inmate, John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a giant black man with a gift of preternatural empathy; he can literally suck the pain out of people. Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), the chief guard of E Block, is in awe of this white magic. He benefits from it, uses it to help a friend and, eventually, pays...
...Ultimately, Edgecomb must make a difficult choice in deciding between duty and right. To follow through with the execution of John Coffey would be to kill an innocent man - yet there is nothing that he can legally do to prevent it. Edgecomb himself expresses fear of damnation, for how could God forgive him for killing one of his messengers? Needless to say, Edgecomb's emotional turmoil is palpable, and his final decision forever impacts his life...
...spiritual core. Here, Stephen King's affinity for all things supernatural and unexplainable shines through. John Coffey possesses the mysterious ability to heal wounds and illnesses with his touch; his hand starts to glow with a mystical light, and his healings are nothing short of miraculous. His touch cures Edgecomb's urinary tract infection and revives a dead Mr. Jingles, and his power is so strong that light bulbs in his proximity shatter before the sheer concentrated energy. After each healing, the harmful spirits, in the form of a black swarm, are coughed up and released from Coffey's mouth...
...Green Mile is a place of redemption, where guilty men receive a final opportunity to repent. It is here that John Coffey transcends the black and white of this world, elevating the struggle between good and evil to a spiritual plane. During the climactic scene in which Edgecomb takes Coffey's hand through the bars of his cell, Coffey rewards Edgecomb's faith in him by letting him see the evil that he sees. With sparks flying in the background, Edgecomb glimpses Coffey's insight, and realizes the truth...
...only flaw preventing Darabont's triumphant second effort from being perfect is the manner in which the story begins and ends. Told as a flashback by an older Edgecomb sixty years after the fact, the story opens with scenes that take place in the present. This set-up at the beginning of the film is fine, but the ending just doesn't work. Immediately after the final scene from 1935, the story shifts back to the present for a wrap-up that comes across as contrived (the same problem plagued Saving Private Ryan). Instead of ending the film...