Death Row during the Depression
This isn't what I call a brilliant film, it is quite a good film but it does have it's shortfalls. Some people will be able to look past the shortfalls and still enjoy the almost three hour movie where as for others it will be at least an hour too long.
If you want an excellent prison movie it is hard to go past Shawshank Redemption. Shawshank is a little better than this one.
The story in this movie is told by a long retired prison guard Paul. It is told through his eyes, and he recounts one year in particular while he was one of the guards on death row. Their section was referred to as "the green mile". During this particular year a prisoner called John Coffey is brought to the prison.
John has been convicted of murdering two girls, and he is a giant of man. John towers above everyone else, however it soon becomes apparent that John isn't the hardened murderer he was portrayed to be. Instead he is more like a humble, gentle, somehwat simple man.
John also appears to have the ability to heal people, and after a number of events Paul begins to question if John is indeed the killer. As the movie progresses we are given a number of scenes via flashback that do explain how John knew the girls and how he was trying to "save" them but they couldn't be healed. This means that he was found holding the girls with their blood on his clothes. In order words an open and shut case for the prosecution.
The movie does show a number of executions via electrocution in the electric chair (it is R rated) which results in a powerful anti death penalty message coming through, and also that justice isn't always served as it should be.
The majority of the actors do an excellent job with Tom Hanks once again showing how good he is. Overall it is still a very good movie, just not quite brilliant.