Flick Shines Positive Light on COs

What are you waiting for? If you haven’t done so yet, grab your spouse and older children and head on over to the local theater to watch “The Green Mile.”

Set on death row in a Southern prison in 1935, “The Green Mile,” adapted from Stephen King’s 1996 best-selling novel, takes a look at prison life for COs. With a cast that includes a tough but fair supervisor of death-row COs, a 7-foot condemned inmate and a mouse, the film takes viewers through emotions ranging from gut-wrenching laughter to frustration and sadness.

A special screening of the movie was held in Washington, D.C., where 20 AFSCME COs from Maryland were invited. The COs gave the movie a thumbs-up, and afterward, a movie critic from one of Washington’s leading news stations interviewed several of them.

Tom Hanks stars as the head CO at Louisiana’s Cold Mountain Penitentiary. He develops a special relationship with the giant inmate, played by Michael Clarke Duncan, who has mystical powers. The gripping film looks at the touchy relationships that develop between death row inmates and Hanks’ good-natured subordinates. The “green mile” represents the slow walk inmates must take on a green floor that leads to the electric chair.

Although the movie — nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture — sometimes drags through its three hours, the director does an excellent job of keeping the audience on the edge of its seat with most scenes.