The Green Mile (1999)
Oh God - sometimes the Green Mile seems so long.
THE SUMMARY: An innocent death row inmate at a Depression-era Louisiana prison demonstrates miraculous healing abilities, the corrections officers put him to work saving the warden’s terminally ill wife, and then electrocute him anyway because those are the orders. There are moral themes I can appreciate here, but they are too scattered and unfocused in a presentation that’s way longer than necessary. I guess I’m the crazy one though - The Green Mile ranks number 26 on IMDb’s top-rated movies of all time.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER TROY: Probably the only movie that has ever made me cry, The Green Mile is a story about a man keeping faith during a wrongful conviction and inspiring everyone he meets. Everyone in this movie gives a top-notch acting performance. Rest in peace Michael Clarke Duncan!
THE BEST:
The dilemma of following moral truth versus following orders: The core of the movie’s moral dilemma is what to do with an order you know is incorrect as a matter of fact and morality. Not only is John Coffey an innocent man, but he’s a miracle worker. Putting him to death would not only be murder itself, but it would kill a supernatural ability for good the world has never known. Yet the system of due process, itself a moral good, has sentenced him to die and the orders to the corrections officers, along with John Coffey himself, are to be executed without personal intervention.
What is the proper moral course in such a situation? Remove the supernatural abilities, and consider a more plausible case in the real justice system: a man is on death row for a double murder of children. He’s convicted by a jury of his peers, he’s sentenced to die, and all appeals have been exhausted - but some new evidence becomes known to the executioners that he is definitively innocent. The integrity of a justice system depends on fidelity to the system. But a man’s life, and a prospective murder itself, depends on rejecting the system’s orders. Corrections officers going rogue is no justice system at all, but executing an innocent man is no justice at all either.
I see two plausible paths for a person in Edgecomb’s situation: work within the system to make the innocence known, or personally refuse to give the order and pay the price you may. He could tell the warden. He could tell the press. He could tell the Governor. There are systems in place to correct this sort of error. Or, he could just personally refuse to execute the prisoner. He’d likely be punished with his job, but is it better to get fired, or to murder an innocent man?
My disappointment, as I’ll write in the next section, is that Edgecomb does none of these things. He makes the worse choice, without much effort otherwise. And yes, I get it - Coffey said he wanted execution, but just because a friend wants you to kill him doesn’t make it right. If the world’s fundamental moral principle is that life has value, that principle cannot be betrayed so easily.
Eternal (or just really long) life as punishment: I’m fascinated by the concept of eternal life. In many religious contexts, it’s a concept of reward, or peace - of heaven itself. Take my presentation of it lightly, because I admittedly have minimal understanding of what the major faiths would say about it in detail, which why I’m doing the weekly Bible study, but I have always thought this concept sounded more punishing than appealing. Why would I want to live forever? Isn’t the fact that life is finite what gives it value? If the days we live could be infinite, what would be the value in each day?
Edgecomb experiences exactly this - extra life as punishment. He watches all his loved ones die. He lacks purpose in each individual day. He lives perpetually in the past, wishing he had done things differently decades ago. Death is a natural part of life, and should be accepted, not feared and irrationally avoided. Paradoxically, it’s what gives life value and makes it precious. Without death, there are no risks to life at all.
Again, I don’t make this point to say that religious concepts of eternal life are wrong or misguided. I understand them little. It’s just that eternal life in this world I don’t think is a worthy pursuit.
Doing no more than is necessary for justice: I appreciate the movie’s themes of restraint in justice. Some people deserve to fry, no doubt - and I say that as a general opponent of the death penalty out of skepticism that the state can get that decision correct on an aggregate level sufficient for the moral weight of these life and death questions. But in individual crimes, there are certainly people who commit them on levels at which death is a deserved and justified penalty.
But that doesn’t mean we should take joy or be reckless with the administration of that penalty. We shouldn’t seek to watch a man die just because we can. This failure is what makes Percy’s character so contemptable - he’s pursuing personal enjoyment rather than justice. He doesn’t want to watch a man fry as justice for the crimes he’s committed. He wants to watch a man fry just to see what will happen.
There’s a moral difference there - even when a killing is justified, whether it’s punishment for crime or self-defense, there are moral implications to enjoying it and celebrating it, and to disrespecting the value inherent to that life.
Percy leaves the sponge dry
Saving lives can cost lives: See the every public policy we’ve pursued since March of 2020: the lockdowns, the mandates, the complete upheaval of society for the cause of ‘saving lives.’ Politicians often just declare it as automatic justification for whatever they do, as Joe Biden screamed in a recent clenched-fist old man outburst: ‘I don’t wanna hear any more of these lies… we’re changing people’s lives!’
Of course John Coffey actually does save laves through miraculous healing, but the point remains - his saving of life actually costs it too. It causes Wild Bill’s murder, and Percy’s mental incapacitation.
The point is by meddling with the natural order of the world, even to pursue what we think are good ends, we risk if not guarantee negative consequences, because we are violating the fundamental rules of our universe. It’s like cheating in a card game. Sure, you might win a hand or two, but eventually you will be caught, and there will be a price to pay.
THE WORST:
‘Oh God - sometimes the Green Mile seems so long:’ Ain’t that the truth? The movie is just too long, spending time on points that aren’t necessarily totally irrelevant, but secondary to the main points and dilemmas of the movie. Cool, Paul’s wiener works now, but I don’t need both urinary and sexual demonstration of that. Cool, Paul’s still alive at 108, but I don’t really need to see him sad about a nursing home movie at the start for 10 minutes to get that point at the end. Cool, Del likes the prison mouse, and yes, the mouse is important in the demonstration of Coffey’s powers, but I don’t need a full-fledged man-mouse romance novel to get the point.
Worse still though, it’s not just that the movie wastes time developing less important pieces - it’s that it’s at the expense of the more important ones, which makes it impossible for me to score this movie highly. There are several key points in this movie left under or completely unexplained. Such as:
How did John find the girls?: John’s innocence is the most important point in the movie outside of his magical powers, but we don’t get to see exactly how he came upon the kidnapped and murdered girls? How he likely tried to use his powers to save them, but failed? And why was he in the middle of the woods anyway? What was he doing that led to the encounter? Sure, his innocence is all you need for the point, but wouldn’t the point be stronger the more strongly his innocence is shown? A few more minutes on that main plot point, instead of Tom Hanks taking a joyful piss, would make a better movie.
Why doesn’t anybody want to talk about the miracles?: It’s bizarre that nobody seems to care that much about the miracle working - maybe I’m supposed to believe everyone’s just afraid of sounding crazy. But John Coffey has a damn good alibi - he was trying to save the girls, not kill them. Don’t believe him? Watch him perform a miracle. But he never does.
Similarly, the corrections officers aren’t particularly interested in discussing the mouse miracle. They’ve just watched every feeble bone in that mouse’s body be magically healed, but that’s apparently just another day at work. Whatever. Carry on.
And definitely don’t tell the warden about it, even though he has a terminally ill wife who would greatly benefit. Instead, we’ll just plan to connect them in secret for some reason.
In fact, just age away to 108 in a nursing home and don’t tell anybody the whole time. I’m sure nobody will ask how the hell you’re 108 and still walking around everyday with seemingly no physical or mental limitations. Just save the most amazing story since Jesus Christ for some side bitch who might give you a wrinkly handy for it.
It’s completely preposterous that everybody keeps miracles before their very eyes to themselves. This series of events would be the talk of the world - instead it’s hardly the talk of the prison floor, or even the town.
What exactly was the plan at the warden’s house?: Speaking of, why would they show up at the warden’s house in the middle of the night to heal his wife, and expect him not to know? And why wouldn’t they want him to know? They act like the plan has fallen apart once they’re discovered - how did they expect not to be discovered by just walking into his bedroom?
Like the prior point, keeping the operation a secret is just silliness anyway. If you have a way to heal the man’s dying wife, as demonstrated by his own sorrow, he’d likely be quite interested in hearing it, and likely helpful in arranging a meeting that doesn’t have to be so tactical. This is like Publishers Clearing House breaking into your home to deliver your winnings. You can just knock, dude.
Why doesn’t Edgecomb put up any sort of fight?: Most disappointingly, Edgecomb puts up no fight at all to save Coffey’s life and himself from the moral failure of executing an innocent man. He has this moving conversation with Coffey about how he could possibly face judgment in the afterlife if he willfully kills a heaven-sent miracle worker for no reason other than he was ordered to do it… and then he just does it anyway, without exercising any resistance or appeals other than his own tearful extra moment or two. He doesn’t go public. He doesn’t talk to the Governor. He just does what he says is morally unacceptable.
As mentioned, I guess I’m supposed to consider this a ‘favor’ to Coffey who says he wants to die, but again, there are moral implications to shooting my friend in the face just because he asks me to.
Edgecomb considers the day of his judgement
THE RATING: 3/5 Wickies. I want to like it, and there are themes I certainly do, but the presentation lacks focus, making it way too long with things that don’t matter and light on things that do. Still, I originally awarded this movie a 2, but upon reflection, I appreciate the deeper concepts enough to award a bonus Wicky.
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NEXT WEEK: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
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