The Green Mile: Difference between revisions

{{work}}

 

1996 dramatic novel by [[Stephen King]]. Originally released as a [[Serial Novel]] in six installments.

** [[Authority Equals Asskicking]]: To show how tough he is, Edgecomb tells a story of how Moores faced down a prisoner with a shank. It ended with the prisoner on the ground with a broken wrist, calling for his mommy. Moores replies, "I'm not her, but if I were, I'd hike up my skirts and piss on you from the loins that gave you birth."

* [[Berserk Button]]: Wharton likes his nickname to be Billy the Kid, not Wild Bill. Wharton earns himself some time in solitary by abusing a guard. Paul Edgecombe calls him Wild Bill while applying a straitjacket, and gets back a writhing, agonized lecture about the difference between the two names. "Brutal" Howell proceeds to lean in to the restrained Wharton and push that red, shiny, jolly candy-like button with both hands.

* [[Blatant Lies]]: "I didn't know the sponge was supposed to be wet."

* [[Blessed with Suck]]: Coffey. "It's like pieces of glass in my head. All the time."

* [[Deep South]]

* [[Dirty Coward]]: Percy. Emphasis on ''dirty''.

* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]

* [[Downer Ending]]: {{spoiler|Edgecombe is spiritually broken after executing Coffey, and is still alive sixty years later, hoping he'll [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|die before any more of his friends do.]]}}

* [[Electric Torture]]: ...Sort of.

* [[Empathic Healer]]

* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: One can say Coffey inflicted this on Percy. And Paul. The former intentionally, the latter not.

* [[Fiery Coverup]]: Part of the crime that put Delacroix on the Mile.

** Similarly, Dean Stanton, {{spoiler|whom the other guards had protected on account of his kids, is the first of the four main guards to die.}}

* [[Jerkass]]: Percy Wetmore.

* [[Kick the Dog]]: Two by Percy; {{spoiler|when he stomps Mr. Jingles and what he says to Delcroix about Mousfield not existing before executing him.}}

* [[Kick the Son of a Bitch]]: The prison guards do this to Percy ''a lot.''

* [[Last-Minute Reprieve]]: Subverted; Edgcomb makes it a point to say the governor's line next to Old Sparky never rang. Both commutations (to a black woman who killed her womanizing husband and an insurance salesman who killed his father to collect the insurance money) were well before they were scheduled to be executed.

* [[Let Them Die Happy]]: A basic rule of the care of the condemned, and another reason Percy's a [[Jerkass]] is that he broke the rule with a condemned ''in the chair''...

{{quote|'''Paul:''' You son of a bitch, you stand there and watch!}}

* [[Scary Black Man]]: Subverted. Coffey is big and scary looking, but gentle and childlike.

** Later defied when the rest of the guards warn him not to tell anyone {{spoiler|that they straitjacketed him and locked him in solitary confinement}}, reminding him that he's not the only one who knows people.

** {{spoiler|Elaine}} pulls this as well.

* [[Sissy Villain]]: Percy.

* [[Stupidity-Inducing Attack]]: {{spoiler|John Coffey does this to Percy, not through evil intentions but to remove the threat to his friends, resulting in the guard ending up in an insane asylum.}}

* [[Team Pet]]: Steamboat Willy a.k.a Mr.Jingles.

** Similarly, Paul comments on how, in the movies, the governor's line to the execution room always rang right before the switch was pulled, and the contrast was that it never did ring in any of the 78 executions he took part in.

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Percy, Percy, ''Percy''.

* [[Last Request]]: {{spoiler|Coffey receives his choice of dinner on the day of his execution as is standard, and Paul begs him to ask for other things, including a chance of escape to which he and the other guards would gladly turn the other way. John assures them that he is ready to die. Even earlier in the film, John tells them that he's never seen a "flicker show", so a projector is set up and he is allowed to watch the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film ''Top Hat''.}}

{{quote|{{spoiler|'''John:''' <''watching, entranced''> "They's angels... Angels, just like up in heaven..!"}}}}

* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: Gary Sinise is only in one scene, but the [[Forrest Gump|obvious]] [[Apollo 13|connections]] with Tom Hanks put him in the trailer.

** And while Harry Dean Stanton does show up for some other scenes, he only has any real lines in one scene, which ends up being a major [[Crowning Moment of Funny]].

* [[Oscar Bait]]

* [[Pragmatic Adaptation]]: Some of the more rational explanations in the book are turned into supernatural explanations in the movie. {{spoiler|Instead of Paul figuring out who the actual killer was on his own, John Coffey gave him the information through his touch.}}

** They're specifically asking why {{spoiler|''John''}} did it to Wharton. And they'd probably be right to ask: In the book it was mentioned that the two men didn't pass more than two dozen words past each other their entire time on the Mile, and half of those were when Wharton grabbed him.

* [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil]]: Which is why Delacroix's crime was not mentioned in the film.

* [[Retirony]]: Percy ending up a patient at the Briar Ridge Mental Institution, after being 'encouraged' to get a transfer there.

'''Paul Edgecombe''': Why don't you go make sure?

''(A pause) ''

* [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]: Paul taking the most epic piss anyone has ever taken after his urinary infection is cured.

* [[Working on the Chain Gang]]: Seen right at the beginning of the movie.