The Green Mile

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

The Green Mile centers around a magic black simpleton (Michael Clarke Duncan) who's afraid of the dark, endowed with healing powers, gigantic in stature, and the alleged possessor of a malevolent, engorged libido. He's one of several inmates condemned to walk death row's green mile in this prison drama. Tom Hanks as the prison superintendent struggles to add honor to this blackface farce about mortality, prejudice, and criminality in 1930s deep South, where the only nonwhite character is a flatly symbolic idiot-savant of extraordinary proportions who bonds instantly with a rodent named Mr. Jingles. The crudely simplistic situation is extended for three hours, giving the audience more than enough time to contemplate the horrors of imprisonment.