The Green Mile is three hours long and every minute is earned. Frank Darabont, returning to the Stephen King prison drama after The Shawshank Redemption, delivers a film of enormous patience and enormous feeling.

Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecombe, a death row corrections officer in 1935 Louisiana who encounters John Coffey, a massive, gentle man convicted of murdering two young girls. Michael Clarke Duncan as Coffey gives one of the most affecting performances of his career: a man of supernatural gifts, profound gentleness, and terrible sadness about a world that has treated him with unrelenting cruelty.

The film operates as a fable, with the spiritual metaphors worn openly. It does not apologize for this. It commits to its story with complete sincerity, and that sincerity is what makes it work. When Darabont asks you to accept the miraculous, you do, because the film has already made you trust it.

The ensemble cast, Sam Rockwell, Doug Hutchison, Barry Pepper, David Morse, is excellent. Rockwell as Wild Bill, the film’s only truly malevolent figure, is particularly memorable. He makes evil feel specific and human rather than theatrical.

The final twenty minutes are among the most emotionally demanding in mainstream cinema. Come prepared.

The Green Mile was nominated for four Oscars and won none. It is routinely underrated. It is a great American film about mercy, suffering, and the cost of compassion.