The Green Mile(1999)

Plot Summary

• In a Louisiana nursing home in 1999, Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) lives a lonely life. He likes to take long walks outside the nursing home, against their policy, as he likes to visit a particular cottage near the nursing home. Paul is fitter and more mobile than all the other inhabitants of the home. Paul begins to cry while watching the film Top Hat, after dinner at the home. His elderly friend Elaine (Eve Brent) shows concern for him, and Paul tells her that the film reminded him of when he was a prison officer in charge of death row inmates at Cold Mountain Penitentiary during the summer of 1935. Flashback to 1935, where Paul works with fellow guards Brutus "Brutal" Howell (David Morse), Harry Terwilliger (Jeffrey DeMunn), Bill Dodge (Brent Briscoe) and Dean Stanton (Barry Pepper). The death row is usually called the "The Last Mile", but at Cold Mountain, it was called "The Green Mile" as the floor was the color of faded limes. The electric chair was named "The Old Sparky". 1935 was the worst year for Paul as he had a urinary infection. It was a painful infection and Paul felt that every time he went to urinate, he was passing razor-blades.Percy Wetmore, a sadist with a fierce temper, has recently begun working in the death row inmates block; his fellow guards dislike him, but cannot get rid of him because of his family connections to the governor.One day, John Coffey (Michael Clark Duncan), a giant African American man convicted of sexually assaulting and killing two young white girls, arrives on death row. However, he is shy, soft-spoken, and emotional. Other inmates are Eduard, Wharton, Arlen Bitterbuck (Graham Greene), Toot-Toot (Harry Dean Stanton) and others. Percy (Doug Hutchison) is a sadist man & a guard in Paul's block. Percy takes unique pleasure in pointing out that a person is on death row and would taunt them continuously to remind them of this fact, trying to provoke them into a fight. Paul tries to control Percy, to no avail.In his conviction sheet, it is noted that 2 girls went missing from a Louisiana home. The father Klaus (William Sadler) and the neighbors launch a manhunt and find John some distance away, inside the jungle, with the bloodied bodies of his 2 daughters. It is indicated that John can sense a person's history by making physical contact with them. It is also indicated that John was in pain, and was yelling, as he was traumatized by what happened to the 2 girls (he was stroking their hair, as he lay on the ground weeping and yelling). John only says that he tried to take it back, but it was too late, indicating that he sexually assaulted the girls and killed them.Meanwhile, a violent prisoner named "Wild Bill" Wharton (Sam Rockwell) has arrived, to be executed for multiple murders committed during a robbery. Wharton has been a problem child all along and appears to be mentally ill. Yet, he has been declared mentally competent, and hence is now on death row.Paul is married to Jan (Bonnie Hunt). Brutus and Dean discover a mouse in the cell block, who hides in the storage room. But when the storage room is searched, there is no sign of it. The mouse is cute and was a source of entertainment for the inmates & Paul & his team. The mouse befriends Eduard, who names him Mr. Jingles. Eduard takes Mr Jingles for a pet. When Percy gets to know about this, Percy decides to kill it precisely because it brought Joy to other people's lives. Percy tries hard to find the mouse inside the storage cell, without luck. Mr Jingles gets very famous and even politicians visit the prison to see him perform. One day, while Percy was razzing on Eduard, Wharton got hold of Percy and threatened to kill him. Percy got so scared that he urinated in his pants. Eduard could not stop laughing about this, and Percy felt humiliated. Percy swears revenge on Eduard. As Eduard is on death row, he asks Paul to take care of Mr Jingles while he is gone. But just then, as Mr Jingles escapes Eduard's cell, Percy steps on it and kills it.John reveals extraordinary powers by healing Paul's urinary tract infection and resurrecting the mouse. Every time John "heals" someone, a swarm of insects fly out of his mouth, indicating the disease being expelled from his own body. Percy believes that Brutus and Paul switched the mouse.During his training Percy is taught never to throw the electric switch on the chair, without wetting the towel. Wetting the towel conducts the electricity smoothly to the brain and leads to a swift and painless death. Soon, the prison witnesses the death row of Arlen. It requires 2 sets of shocks to kill Arlen, when the first jolt fails to stop his heartbeat.Paul reaches out to John's mental doctor Burt Hammersmith (Gary Sinise) to understand how a non-violent man like John could sexually assault and murder 2 girls. John had no prior official record of his existence (it was like he materialized out of nowhere). The doctor says that he has no doubt that John committed those crimes, but his judgment is severely impaired by his hatred for the African Americans (because his own boy was attacked by a dog and blinded in one eye. Burt compares African Americans to dogs).Percy demands to manage the execution of Eduard Delacroix (Michael Jeter), promising that afterward, he will transfer to an administrative post at the Briar Ridge mental hospital. An agreement is made, but Percy then deliberately sabotages the execution: Instead of wetting the sponge used to conduct electricity and make executions quick and effective, he leaves it dry, causing the execution to malfunction dramatically. Eduard literally fries in the chair and his flesh is cooked from within his body, and eventually catches fire.Paul's warden Hal's wife is suffering from a brain tumor and Hal is distraught. Paul convinces Hal to let Malinda meet John. Paul reveals to Hal about how John healed him. Paul then convinces his team to distract Percy, to John can be brought out of his cell block to meet Melinda. Percy is bound and gagged and put into solitary confinement, while Wharton is drugged and put to sleep. Later, John heals the terminally ill wife Melinda (Patricia Clarkson) (who has a brain tumor and it cannot be operated upon) of Warden Hal Moores (James Cromwell). When John is asked to explain his power, he merely says that he "took it back." But this time, the insects don't escape from John's body, after he sucks Melinda's disease from her body. Brutus knows that John swallowed Melinda's sickness for a reason.At one point Wharton seizes John's arm, and John psychically senses that Wharton is also responsible for the crime for which John was convicted and sentenced to death. John "takes back" the sickness in Hal's wife and regurgitates it into Percy, who then shoots Wharton to death and falls into a state of permanent catatonia. Percy is then admitted to Briar Ridge Mental Hospital as a patient rather than an administrator.In the wake of these events, Paul interrogates John, who says he "punished them bad men" and offers to show Paul what he saw. John takes Paul's hand and says he has to give Paul "a part of himself" in order for Paul to see what really happened to the girls. Paul realizes that it was Wharton who had killed the 2 little girls, after sexually assaulting them.Paul asks John what he should do, if he should open the door and let John walk away. John tells him that there is too much pain in the world, to which he is sensitive, and says he is "rightly tired of the pain" and is ready to rest. For his last request on the night before his execution, John watches the film Top Hat. When John is put in the electric chair, he asks Paul not to put the traditional black hood over his head because he is afraid of the dark. Paul agrees, shakes his hand, and John is executed.As an elderly Paul finishes his story, he notes that he requested a transfer to a youth detention center, where he spent the remainder of his career. Elaine questions his statement that he had a fully grown son at the time, and Paul explains that he was 44 years old at the time of John's execution and that he is now 108. This is apparently a side effect of John giving a "part of himself" to Paul. Mr. Jingles, Del's mouse resurrected by John, is also still alive - but Paul believes his outliving all of his relatives and friends (including Elaine, who is shown to have died at the end) to be a punishment from God for having John executed and wonders how long it will be before his own death.

Storyline

• Based on Stephen King's 1996 novel of the same name. Stars Tom Hanks as a death row corrections officer during the U.S. Great Depression who witnesses supernatural events that occur after an enigmatic inmate (Michael Clarke Duncan) is brought to his facility. — MR_Heraclius It's just another normal day on the Green Mile for prison guard Paul Edgecomb. That is until huge John Coffey is sent there. Unlike the hulking brute that Coffey looks like, he is in fact kind at heart. Whilst watching over Coffey, Edgecomb learns that there is more to Coffey than can be seen. — FilmFanUk