‘Green Mile’ rich in atmospher, cast> Poignant new prison epic an excursion in old-fashioned story-telling

In Theaters — “The Green Mile”

If audiences could walk into Frank Darabont’s “The Green Mile” every week, the cineplex would be a better place.

The film is a poignant, three-hour excursion in old-fashioned storytelling that recalls Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” in structure while nearly duplicating Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption” in tone.

The film is a gem that creates a richly absorbing atmosphere while investing itself completely in characters well-defined by Darabont’s literate script and his excellent cast.

Based on the best-selling, serialized novel by Stephen King, “The Green Mile,” told in flashback, is terrific; ignore what you may have heard about an inflated running time.

The film does have elements of the supernatural and a few truly grisly scenes, but it’s in no hurry to exploit those elements or King’s association with them. Instead, Darabont knows he has the gift of King’s story, which he wisely allows to open and evolve as naturally as King did in his novel.

The film’s soul rests within its cast, spearheaded by Tom Hanks’ superb performance as Paul Edgecomb, a quiet, unassuming man in charge of Death Row in a Louisiana penitentiary during the Depression.

With the exception of the loathsome Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), a sadistic guard desperate to use the electric chair so he can watch inmates “cook up close,” Death Row in this romantized world is a close-knit community of likable guards, including Brutus (David Morse), the young Dean Stanton (Barry Pepper) and the veteran Harry Terwilliger (Jeffrey DeMunn).

Together, these men, bonded by death, eventually come to witness the miracle of life through John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a hulking black man sentenced to walk the green mile (a term that refers to the green linoleum floor leading to the prison’s electric chair) after allegedly raping and killing two girls.

Sweet and childlike, his initials and his fate hardly subtle, Coffey eventually reveals he’s similar not only to the title character in Sean Penn’s 1991 film “The Indian Runner,” but also to E.T.; indeed, this man has the power to heal, which we first see when he cures Edgecomb’s bladder infection.

It’s a moment played for all its worth by Darabont, who proves he’s a perfect match for King’s better works. As the film builds toward its emotional climax, the director shows he’s as adept as King in telling big stories with universal themes.

That this story is sweeping within such a confined space is a testament to how well the film, its themes and its moral dilemma come off.

Grade: A

“The City”

Shot in luminous black-and-white and using nonactors in almost every role, David Riker’s “The City” is a powerhouse of a film that does what literature cannot do — allow immediate access into New York City’s Latin American immigrant community with its stark, haunting images.

In a series of four seamless vignettes, it focuses on the disenfranchised, those men, women and children who fled Mexico for the United States in hopes of finding a better life.

That elusive dream comes to no one in “The City”; if anything, the dreams many carried from their homeland have only fallen into nightmare: One man is killed when a building collapses on him, a sweatshop worker is desperate to raise $400 so she can save her dying daughter, two young people find love only to lose each other, and a homeless man is unable to send his daughter to school so she might have a chance at a better life.

The film, which hits so hard, it likely will make audiences question their relationships with the outside world, is a gripping reminder of those overlooked individuals struggling on society’s fringe.

Grade: A

“The City” starts tomorrow at the Railroad Square Cinema in Waterville.

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”