The Green mile - 1999

This was tough but memorable. 

At an old people’s home, Paul has bad dreams then he cries hearing Fred Astaire singing on tv and tells a friend about his past. He was a prison guard during the depression, in charge of death row; it was usually called ‘the last mile’ but they called it ‘the green mile’ because of the colour of the floor. 1935 was the year of John Coffey and the two dead girls. Paul had a urinary infection back then, when huge John entered the prison. 

John is a very tall, big man who speaks shyly and is afraid of the dark. Paul reads his file, to know what he did. Two little girls disappeared; their dad and brother together with the sheriff and his men went looking for them, and found them, they saw John crying over their dead bodies covered in blood, and he was sentenced to death.

There’s a mouse walking around and everyone is curious and amused, but sadist Percy goes crazy trying to kill it; nobody likes him but he has high connections. They do rehearsals, for the execution the next day, and Percy watches avidly. Next, the execution itself and Percy once again watches avidly, keeps staring as a man dies, then mocks him over his dead body. 

A prisoner calls the mouse Mr Jingles and plays with it. Paul’s boss and friend Hal is desperate because his wife has a brain tumor that can’t be operated. 

Percy is all big words and cruelty inside, but when he should hit an aggressive, fighting new prisoner, he can’t do it, can’t move. 

Paul has terrible pain, and John Coffey calls him, needs to see him, and then John grabs him, touches him, there’s a big light and then bugs or sand or something come out of his mouth.

John says he helped him, and sure enough now Paul can pee without pain, and he has sex with his wife all night. 

Paul goes to talk to John’s defence lawyer, but the man is sure of his guilt. 

When a mad prisoner grabs him, Percy pisses himself off and feels humiliated and is angry people saw him. Percy then kills the little mouse by stepping on it, then Paul gives it to John who breathes life back into it. Paul has Percy promise that he’ll transfer elsewhere after the next execution, and in exchange Paul puts Percy on the front row, but nobody notices that Percy doesn’t wet the sponge when he should have, and the execution is long and horrible and smelly, all witnesses try to run.

Still, Percy will go away.

Paul tells the other guards about Coffey healing him and saving the mouse, and tells them that he wants to bring John Coffey to Hal’s wife to see if he can cure her.

Paul tells them he can’t believe someone with that healing power would kill little girls. So they do it, they sneak out with John and take him to Melinda. John sucks the tumour out of her and into himself, but doesn’t get it out. She thanks him and gifts him her own necklace. They take him back to his cell. They have to.

When Percy stands in front of his cell, John grabs him and exhales the sickness into him, then Percy shoots crazy evil prisoner William Wharton to death, before exhaling the sickness himself. 

John says he punished the two bad men, and lets Paul see that it was Wharton the one who killed the two little girls, when he worked for their father. 

Now Percy is a patient at the mental hospital, not a guard. They all know now that John is innocent, and Paul is consumed knowing he’ll have to lead one of God’s true miracles to his death, and offers John to let him go, knowing that nobody can legally stop the execution. John refuses, says he’s tired of it all, and only asks for a last dinner and to see a movie because he’s never seen one, and they show him that one with Fred Astaire dancing cheek to cheek. 

Then it’s John’s execution. Paul shakes his hand before giving the order, and John is killed. Then Paul puts the necklace back around his neck. 

After that, both Paul and Brutal transferred to ‘Boys’ correctional’, they couldn’t do it anymore.

Now old Paul shows his lady friend Ellie that he still has Mr Jingles. He says that John passed something to him and the mouse: life.

Back then Paul was 44, now he’s 108. He survived all his friends, and still does. We see him at Ellie’s funeral, and he always thinks of the people he loved, and John, and wonders how long will he still have to live. 

He calls life his own green mile.

Paul Edgecomb - Tom Hanks

Brutus ‘Brutal’ Howell - David Morse

Jan Edgecomb - Bonnie Hunt

John Coffey - Michael Clarke Duncan

Warden Hal Moores - James Cromwell

Percy Wetmore - Doug Hutchison

‘Wild Bill’ Wharton - Sam Rockwell

Melinda Moores - Patricia Clarkson

Toot-Toot - Harry Dean Stanton

Old Paul - Dabbs Greer

Klaus Detterick - William Sadler   (the girls father)

Burt Hammersmith (the lawyer) - Gary Sinise

the credits end with ‘special thanks to Stephen King’

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