The Slow Hanks Redemption
by Rolando Recometa

Director Frank Darabont gave us one from the heart: The Shawshank Redemption. Now he gives us one from the bladder. THE GREEN MILE begs the question: How many piss shots can one cram into a three-hour movie? Maybe it's about the mystical power of urination; I haven't seen bladder rush this ferocious since Hurricane Oprah let it rip in Beloved.

Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecomb, a Depression-era death row superintendent with a urinary infection. There's something about watching big stars piss. When the star happens to be Tom Hanks, it's all very Oscar-worthy. Finally, he's found a role to match his constipated look. Constantly grimacing and grabbing his crotch in pain, Hanks discharges with tremendous versatility. He trickles, he sprinkles, he squirts and he gushes. Darabont has surrounded Hanks with a talented posse of pissers. There's the sadistic but cowardly prison guard (Doug Hutchison) who pees in his pants. A sociopathic inmate (Sam Rockwell) enjoys spraying the guards passing by his cell.

While the first half of the movie is devoted to the physical intricacies of pissing, the second half turns more spiritually symbolic. We meet John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a towering black man convicted of killing two girls. He bawls like a baby and he's afraid of the dark. He's pissed on and he's pissed off, but he loves helping people. He has healing powers, you see. (The similarity between his initials and a certain historical figure with miraculous powers is no mere coincidence.) Thanks to J.C., Paul gets his mojo back. He goes home and screws his wife (poor Bonnie Hunt in another thankless role) four times in a row. Ms. Hunt moans convincingly and should get a supporting Oscar nod.

There is also a mouse that keeps wandering in from the set of Stuart Little. Next to Gloria Estefan's acting debut in Music of the Heart, this has got to be the most annoying screen presence since Jar Jar Binks . There are no less than three grisly execution scenes that should warm the hearts of the Jerry Springer crowd. The Green Mile is several movies in one. What it isn't is a women's prison film. There are no pointless nude shower scenes and hot lesbian sex. Pisser! One longs for even a lousy prison film like Paradise Road, where the threat of seeing Glenn Close and Frances McDormand in naked embrace is a lot more suspenseful than anything in The Green Mile.

The title refers to the lime-colored floor that leads to the electric chair. Why green? Did the piss stains alter the color?

The Green Mile is loaded with religious symbolism, most of them obvious. But I didn't realize the significance of piss until after the movie. Judging from the long, impatient lines waiting to use the washroom, I realized what the movie's final words meant. "Sometimes the Green Mile seems a little long." The Green Mile definitely moved us all to pisses.