Starring: Tom Hanks, David Morse, Michael Clarke Duncan, Mr.Jingles, Old Sparky

Rated: AA for a couple people getting fried, lots of swearing, one man gets shot 5 times

        Plot: Tom Hanks and 4 other guards are in charge of cell block "E", the last place for murderers placed on death row. Tom Hanks realizes that one of the inmates is innocent and has special powers and can cure people. Of course that's not all this movie covers, as it is 3 fuckin' hours long and has many sub-plots.

        My Take: Well it's Christmas season, and come Christmas, you get all the 'last minute' movies trying to make the cut for Oscar nominations. Shit, all I do when I read the paper during this time of the year, is see "One of the best pictures of the year" or "Blah Blah Gives and Oscar worthy performance". Now I know there are a shitload of movies I haven't seen this year, and yes many of them have been "Oscar Contenders"... but when I go to these "Oscar Contender" flicks, which I rarely do, I never come out saying "Damn, that was the best movie of the year", last night, I did the same.

        This movie has been hyped up a lot, I remember picking up my edition of "Entertainment Weekly" in the summer, and they give a movie a certain "buzz" out of 10 on a buzz meter, and of all the 160 movies being hyped up for the fall/winter season, this had the highest. Why? Just because you have Tom Hanks in the movie, a Stephen King novel, and a director who made the "Shawshank Redemption", doesn't mean it's the greatest movie of the year.

        What did I think? Oh, it was good, I enjoyed it a lot, but really, 3 hours? Come on, they didn't need to show it in this length. I could have easily liked the movie the same, if they had cut out about 30-40 minutes of the film. Performances, were they great? Nope. But they were solid, all the big buzz about Michael Clarke Duncan's performance... what the hell, I couldn't understand what he was saying half the time. But he did do a good job, and a believable one, as the innocent-giant-afraid-of-the-dark inmate. Tom Hanks, is well, Tom Hanks, you know you will get a solid performance from Tom Hanks in all of his movies, but please, no oscar this time. My favourite character though, had to be Doug Hutchison as the eeeeevil prison guard, Percy. The audience loved to hate him, and he was played perfectly. David Morse as Brutus Howell was also one of my fave characters.

        But what I don't get about this movie, is how it warps your mind. Here we are, watching the screen, and crying when one of the inmates gets fried, but why are we? We are upset that they die and we shouldn't be. We all think that one of the inmates is a sweet, kind person, who plays with a mouse, but really folks, there is a reason he is in jail, he killed someone. Why should we be feeling bad for a murderer? Stephen King is making us cheer for the bad guy people! I'll have to admit though, that Percy is one mean motherfucker for what he did to Eduard Delacroix. And shit, this Mr.Jingles thing, I thought it was stupid also, but it did have a point I guess, and the ending will show it.

        I guess you could say this movie is well done overall, and the cast does a great performance, but still if they could only cut down the movie length. I mean, there is one scene with Gary Sinise (who lasts 2 minutes in the movie, what the fuck?) which was unnecessary.

RATING: **** out of *****

Running Time: 3 hrs 8 mins