Presumed innocent (released in 1990) - starring Harrison Ford, John Spencer, and Brian Dennehy - a prosecutor charged with murder

This is a 1990 film adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name by Scott Turow. It was directed by Alan J. Pakula, the film stars Harrison Ford, John Spencer, Brian Dennehy, Raul Juliá, Bonnie Bedelia, Paul Winfield and Greta Scacchi.
The lead character is Rozat "Rusty" Sabich who is a prosecutor of Kindle county and the right hand man of the chief prosecutor Raymond Horgan. He is shocked by the murder of his ex-mistress Carolyn Polhemus and is put in charge of the investigation by Horgan. Polhemus had dumped Sabich after learning about his friend ship with Horgan and his lack of ambition. Sabich had since made up with his wife Barbara but could not erase Polhemus from his mind. The head of homicide Tommy Molto has left to assist Nico Della Guardia in his election campaign. Both Molto and Della Guardia are enemies of Sabich.
As the investigation progresses incriminating evidence come up against Sabich. This included Beer glasses with his finger prints, Carpet threads from his home and sperm recovered from the body of Polhemus are incriminating evidences. These proofs even turns Horgan against Sabich and he feels that Sabich had taken charge to in the case to cover up the investigation trail against him. Sabich is truly trapped and calls his friend Lipranzer to narrow the investigation to keep his affair with Polhemus away from the case. But more bad news arrive with Della Guardia's victory. Both Guardia and Molto aggressively pursue the evidence and try to frame Sabich.



In his desperation Sabich enlists the help of his rival attorney Stern to help him. Stern soon starts chipping at the evidence. He notices that the beer glass has been missing as evidence and persuades the Judge Lyttle to keep this from the Jury. Lipranzer also find evidence that Polhemus was acting as a courier for an high official in a bribery scandal. The high official turns to be Judge Lyttle. The missing beer glass and other evidences make the defense arguments weak and Lyttle fairly dismisses the case against Sabich. Stern tells Sabich about the bribery scandal and tells him that Lyttle is essentially a good judge and deserves a chance.
Sabich is highly bitter as he feels that the stain of murder is not completely not washed from his head. But in an unusual twist while gardening he comes across vials of Blood and Polhemus's hair. He confronts his wife Barbara with the evidence. Barbara confesses that she had fallen in to depression after his affair with Polhemus and had killed the mistress to avenge her shame. She had planted the beer glasses and the carpet threads to frame Sabich.
Sabich is stunned but cannot bring himself to to separate Barbara from their son and he tosses the evidence out. This movie did an average business at the box office. It won the Edgar Allan Poe award for best film and was favorite with the critics. A good movie if you are a action buff and are interested in court room intrigues.

There was a crooked man (released in 1970) - starring Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, a comedy western film

This black comedy western is directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and star Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda. Paris Pitman Jr is a bespectacled smooth talking con man and a murderer. He is a very evil man with no morals and soft feelings within him. But being a cool operator he is able to charm his way out of difficult situations and win the trust of those around him.
Pitman and his gang loot the house of a wealthy rancher, Lomax and make away with half a million dollars. But one by one the gang members are shot by the police and the surviving lone marauder is killed by Pitman himself to prevent him from claiming a share on the booty. Pitman escapes and enters a brothel. He ties the money up and drops it in a rattlers pit.
He enters the brothel, is recognized by Lomax and is subsequently arrested and sentenced to a prison Arizona. The prison is in the middle of a desert and a hard life awaits Pitman. But he tries to bribe Warden LeGoff to help him escape. His plans go awry when the warden is killed by one of the inmates and his place is taken up by an upright officer called Lopeman. Lopeman is an idealist who is in favor of prison and judicial reform. He believes in reforming the criminals and presents a slew of measures to improve the conditions in the prison.



Pitman is enraged at first at his failure, but soon wins the trust of Lopeman. Lopeman puts him in charge of the building of a new prison dining room. Soon he starts manipulating others to formulate a plan for escaping from the prison. He forms a gang of his own which includes Missouri Kid, Whinner and Macnutt (a gay con artist couple), Floyd moon, Michael Blodgett, a kid on death row and Ah Ping, a silent Chinese. All of them slowly feel the power of Pitman Jr and plot an escape. They plan to start a riot during the inspection day by the governor.
Soon the plot is successful, with full scale rioting taking place, and as a result, all of them escape from prison. But Pitman the backstabber that he is, kills every one. Lopeman sheds all his idealisms and vow to bring back Pitman dead or alive. But fate has another things in store for the outlaw. As Pitman takes out the loot from the Rattlers nest he is bitten by one of them.
This is the most cynical movie I have ever seen. There is no good vs evil fights with good triumphant over the bad. This is the story of a bad man who corrupts and manipulates his way out to meet the just desserts by the quirk of fate. Tough movie to watch on.

The Wrong man (released in 1956) staring Henry Fonda, struggling to prove themselves innocent

This movie was adapted from a book by Maxwell Anderson, “The True story of Christopher, Emmanuel Balestrero” and is based on a true life incident.
It deals with a couple who fight for justice when the husband is convicted as a result of a mistaken identity. Manny Balestrero, a musician in a night club and his wife Rose live a hand and mouth existence. He tries to borrow money against Rose's insurance for some dental work which needs to be done. While he is at he insurance office, the clerk notices that he resembles the armed robber who had robbed the office. He calls in the police and soon the witnesses are marched in who swear to have seen him robing the office. Manny tries to prove his innocence, but fails. Even in his handwriting sample, in his nervousness, he misspells the same words that the robber himself had mis-spelt. Soon Manny is taken in to custody and the trial begins.
The couple hire Frank O'Connor as the defense attorney who builds up the case in their favor. He argues that Manny and Rose were on a vacation during the first robbery. But the 3 witnesses who had seen them during the vacation had died and this alibi also fails to impress. During the second robbery Manny had a swollen jaw which would have been easily noticeable by the insurance agency employee.



Rose is unable to bear the strain of this ordeal and soon buckles under pressure. She is confined to the sanitarium and is treated for depression. During the trial a bored Juror passes a remark which makes the judge to declare a mistrial. Manny is forced to await another trial in prison. As luck could have it the real robber is arrested and Manny is set free. He reaches Rose with the happy news but finds her apathetic. Soon Rose is cured and the family moves to Florida.
This movie was based on a true life story and is the last movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock for Warner bros. After this he made pictures only for Paramount. This movie is said to have been the only true story in Hitchcock's entire body of work. He is said to have hated the police and this sentiment is amply reflected in this movie. Hitchcock even did a cameo as the story teller in the movie and this is the only time he has appeared in any one of his pictures. He even cast the real Balesstrero witnesses in small parts for the movie. The real life Frank O'Connor is a New York Senator who rises to a appellate Judge.
The wrong man failed to impress at the box office, but is considered a classic. This movie has significant influence on many directors, and was influenced in making of the 2006 movie Lucky Number Slevin.

Twelve angry men (released in 1947) starring Henry Fonda, a gripping drama set in a jury room

12 Angry Men is a courtroom drama adapted from the tele-play of the same name by Reginald Rose. It was directed by Sidney Lumet and is the only film co-produced by Henry Fonda. It tells the story of a jury, made of twelve men, who has to find a defendant guilty or not guilty and also come up with the appropriate sentencing. This entire 96 minutes of the movie takes place in the jury room adjoining the court room. So ultimately this movie utilizes only one set and is said to have been shot with a very low budget.
This jury of twelve men has to deliberate whether the defendant, a slum boy, is guilty of killing his father. The two witnesses are one old man and a lady across the street. The boy has a very weak alibi and there are considerable number of witnesses who heard cries or saw him checking the wound. The most interesting part of this movie is the fact that almost all the characters are unnamed except for the two jurors, at the end. At first, all the jurors except juror No. 8 vote for a guilty verdict. Since American law states that for a criminal offense, all the jurors should give a unanimous verdict, or it may result in a mistrial.



At the insistence of juror No. 8, the others start examining the evidence again and soon start having doubts. Soon juror No. 9 switches sides, and votes with No. 8 resulting in a stalemate. Soon other dissenting voices crop up as they further examine the evidences. Juror Nos 5, 6 and 11 also vote with No. 8 and No.9. These deliberations tire No. 7, who just takes their side to get it over with.
Soon the personality clashes wand psychological conflicts come up to the surface. Angry exchanges and outbursts also undermine the process. Juror number one is so consumed by racial hatred that he just thinks the boy guilty because of his Hispanic origin. The last jury member, No. 3, confesses that his own past would have colored his actions. No. 3 has a running feud with his son, who had raised his hand on the father for trying to mend his ways. These deliberations bring forth the buried feelings to the fore and he breaks down and cries. Juror No: 3 takes out the photograph of him and his son and tears it apart and votes for the “not guilty” verdict. Juror No.8 comforts him and slowly a consensus is build among the members.
The jury gives the verdict of “Not Guilty” and the defendant is acquitted. At the end of the movie, juror No. 8 and juror No. 9, who have become friends exchange pleasantries and names. This movie was not a big box office success, but is considered as a classic. It is preserved in the US National Film Registry as a very culturally, nationally and aesthetically significant film. It did not win any Oscars even though it was nominated for 3 categories, best picture, best director, and best screenplay. It won the Golden Bean award at the 7th international Berlin film festival.

12 Angry Men (1957) - One man's fight for justice

The title above may seem like it is describing a man fighting for justice for himself, but in fact, the story is about a man fighting to get proper justice for an accused. In the United States, decisions for criminal cases are supposed to be evaluated by a jury made up of fellow citizens, who listen to the evidence, and its presentation by the prosecutors and by the defense; in the end, the jury has to reach a verdict that the judge follows. The movie hinges on the fact that for serious crimes, the verdict of the 12 member jury has to be unanimous, and if even one juror objects and does not agree to a unanimous verdict, the jury is called a hung trail, with the case being declared as a mistrial. There is pressure on the minority jury members to reach a verdict, else the jury has to sit for as long as it takes to reach a verdict; it is only if the foreman reaches a decision that a unanimous verdict cannot be reached, does the jury get dismissed.



The movie is about the murder trial of a teenager from poor and disturbed circumstances, who is accused of killing his father. The presentation of evidence is over, the lawyers have made their arguments, and the jury is now deliberating on the judgment. They have been instructed by the judge that they need to reach a verdict of whether the defendant is guilty of murder or not, and if they do reach a verdict of guilty, then the defendant will be sentenced to a mandatory sentence of death.
When a quick vote is taken, it is found that 11 of the jurors (all 12 are white men) are in favor of a death sentence, only Juror # 8 (Henry Fonda) does not vote guilty. In fact, Henry Fonda is not sure about the guilty or not, but believes that some of the evidence presented is circumstantial, and that the jurors must do a fair deliberation before judging the accused to be guilty (and sending him to his death). And thus, you have an excellent movie where you can see the mood of the jury (and individual jurors), as they go through the evidence, deliberate, and review their vote. Jurors change their votes depending on the evidence they hear during the discussion, with a few of them reversing their votes, and one of them voting guilty only because he is bigoted. Eventually, all of them change their vote to Not Guilty.
The movie was based almost entirely in one room, through the deliberations by the jury members, excepting for a couple of scenes in a washroom, and beginning and closing scenes on the steps of the courtroom. The movie did not so well commercially, but has now been recognized as a classic movie, with the role of Juror # 8 being one of the top 50 heroes.

Nixon (1995)

It is very rare that an American President gets impeached, and leaving aside the case of Bill Clinton (who was almost thrown out for lying about Monica Lewinsky), Richard Nixon was the US President who would most certainly have been the one who was impeached if he had not resigned. As it is, at the of his resignation, he was a most polarizing figure in the nation, one who a large section of the population hated, and whose own men had started to resign rather than follow through on his orders.
This was a movie that was hard to make. Oliver Stone had 2 other projects in mind, but they fell through, and he then decided to make a biopic about the Former President, and it gained impetus since Nixon had died in 1994. The studio was hesitant in making the movie (commercially, they were justified in the end since the movie never made its budget in its hall releases), and given that the character being portrayed was one who was almost drummed out from the Presidency, there was always going to be a set of people who would not be happy with the scenes from the movie. And so it proved, since Nixon's family heavily criticized the movie, and many critics also panned the movie (and as always, some other critics praised the movie).



The movie was nominated for 5 Oscars,
Best Actor in a Leading Role (Anthony Hopkins),
Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Joan Allen),
Best Music,
Original Dramatic Score and Best Writing,
Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

Richard Nixon was a complex personality. He did a lot for the United States, it was in his terms that the United States finally withdrew from the mess in Vietnam (although he also tried to succeed militarily, but finally gave up that strategy as flawed), he was the proponent of the immensely strategic opening up to China, it was during his term that a lot of the civil rights desegregation was enforced and the US became a lot less racially separated, he was the President under whom all the successful lunar missions took place. And yet, he was the President who was finally done under due to the arrogance of trying to believe that he was above the law when his involvement in the efforts to break-into the Democratic 1972 convention and then to try and brazen his way out of the investigations into the same incident. He eventually quit when it was clear that he was frozen out. He did a lot more after he resigned in terms of becoming a respected elder statesman, but in the end, Richard Nixon will be remembered for Watergate, the only President of the United States who resigned. And Anthony Hopkins did a great portrayal of this role.

Dead Man Walking (1995)

The death penalty has always been controversial, the debate over whether society and laws have the moral and ethical right to take another person's life. There are a large number of countries where the death penalty no longer exists, with the major nations where the death penalty still holds being Russia, China, India, United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia (and other Islamic countries), Singapore, etc. In the United States, the debate has been a long one, with many people being strong proponents of the death penalty, and others arguing against it (this is getting more heated now that DNA testing is revealing wrongful convictions, link to Innocence Project).
Dead Man Walking is based on a book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun, a passionate advocate of abolition of the death penalty in the US. The title of the book and the movie comes from the traditional saying by guards walking the condemned man to his execution, "Dead man walking, dead man walking here".



The movie (directed by Tim Robbins) won great critical acclaim, and was nominated for a number of Academy Awards. It deals with the story of Matthew Poncele (played by Sean Penn - and based on 2 different characters whom Sister Helen Prejean counselled, both of whom were on death row. In the movie, Matthew has been in prison for 6 years now, awaiting his execution for the crime of having killed a teenage couple (after having raped the girl); his accomplice Vitello was sentenced to a lighter prison sentence due to a better lawyer.
Matthew appeals to the Sister to help him in his final appeal; and he is not the image of a repentant person - instead he comes across as both arrogant and sexist, and with not the slightest tinge of remorse. Instead he claims to be innocent. While visiting him over a period of time, she gets to know his mother, as well as the family members of his victims (who cannot understand her motives for trying to save a convicted murderer). Poncele does not get remission, his appeal for denial of execution is denied, and his date for death is set. Sister Prejean will finally hope to save his soul, for him to confess his deeds. In the end, Matthew does indeed do so, confessing his crimes and pleading for forgiveness from the family members of his victims (just before his execution).

Oscars:
Susan Sarandon won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role.
Sean Penn was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Tim Robbins was nominated for Best Director
Main track, "Dead Man Walkin" by Bruce Springsteen nominated for Best Song

Mr. Smith goes to Washington by Frank Capra

This is another great movie by Frank Capra; one that is not so famous right now, but very famous and controversial in its time. Because it was about corruption in Washington, in the seat of Government and in the legislature, the Washington Press and Congress members labeled the movie as a movie pandering to Communist interests and against American interest. This was not only a US politician reaction, with the other dictatorships (Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Fascist Italy and Spain under Franco) all banning the movie as well. Other countries took liberties in the dubbing of the movie to alter the tone of the script and the dialog.
The movie was well-received (it got 11 Academy nominations after all - not a small number by any standard, although it did not win any of the major ones, and in fact won only one Academy award, for Best Screenplay).



The movie was released in 1939, and starred James Stewart in the lead role (the movie also had the effect of giving a major filip to his career); it had some well know stars of that era such as Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee, Charles Lane, and Thomas Mitchell. The movie was based on a novel called 'The Gentleman from Montana' (by author Lewis R. Foster), with the script of the movie written by Sidney Buchman.
The movie is about a guy called Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), who is the head of the Boy Rangers and seen as a non-corrupt guy. When a senator for a US state (the state is not specified in the movie) dies, the Governor, Hubert "Happy" Hopper (Guy Kibbee), has to balance between the public demand for a honest person to be the next Senator vs. the demand from the political chain to have another corrupt and connected politician. Eventually, the Governor decides to select Smith to be the next Senator; soon, he is condemned by the Washington Press as not being like a Senator, more of a bumpkin.
Goaded into making a name for himself, Smith decides to float legislation for getting Government money to buy land for a boy's camp, with the money coming in from donations by kids all over America. Unknown to him, politics and corruption is already involved in this bill. Soon, things are manipulated such that Smith is soon shown to be owning the land, and Smith decides to run away. However, he is beseeched by his formerly cynical aide / secretary to try and do a legislative tactic called a 'filibuster' (wikipedia) to stall the vote to expel him. He tries to stay the course, and starts drawing support while he is talking non-stop (and the political opposition clamps down on the media to prevent his statements from being displayed). His tactic is to continue speaking, and he does so to the point of exhaustion; when he faints, the Senator who had manipulated him, Senator Paine, has remorse and confesses all.

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

Kramer vs. Kramer was an incredible movie. Based on an adaptation of a novel by Avery Corman, the movie was directed by Robert Benton and released in 1979. The movie became a major landmark in the depiction of the trauma of the divorce of a couple, and the effect that it has on everybody involved, most notably on the young children who are torn apart by the divorce. The depiction of the tensions in a marriage related to ambition, feelings of neglect, and the shift in the earlier traditional roles of a marriage made this movie one that seems relevant even today. The movie came at a time when there was a shift in the traditional dynamics of a marriage, with a greater number of women seeking to find themselves by building a career for themselves. Combine this with a great script, some careful (and non-biased handling), and excellent performances, and you get to see why Kramer vs. Kramer became successful then, and remains a wonderful movie.



The movie starts Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as Ted and Joanna Kramer. Ted is a rising advertising executive, and needs to put in a large amount of time in his job. Something has got to give when such large amounts of time are spent on the job, and ted is unable to spend much time with his wife and child, eight-year old Billy (Justin Henry). He hardly knows what is going on at home, and greatly neglects his wife Joanna. And then it happens; Joanna feels a total sense of despair, of not doing anything, and informs Ted that she needs to leave in order to try and find herself.
This shocks Ted to an incredible degree. He struggles to understand as to why Joanna left him and also has to adjust to running the house, with a young son, and also keep to his demanding job. He slowly starts to adjust to the reason as to why Joanna left him, and starts to form a bond with his son. His job starts suffering, but he is more interested in being a good parent, and eventually he loses his job. And then, after an year and a half, Joanna comes back to claim Billy. Ted is not willing, and a custody battle happens which Ted loses and custody is granted to Joanna. However, in the end, Joanna tells Ted that she understands that Billy has a great relationship with Ted, and that Billy can continue to stay with Ted.

Oscar Wins

* Best Picture
* Best Director
* Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
* Best Actor in a Leading Role - Dustin Hoffman
* Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Meryl Streep

Nominations

* Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Jane Alexander
* Best Cinematography
* Best Film Editing
* Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Justin Henry. Henry was and is to date the youngest acting Academy Award nominee.

Cape Fear (1991)

Cape Fear was a movie released in 1991, based on an earlier movie made in 1962 (with some differences). The 1991 movie was made by famed director Martin Scorsese (a tidbit of continuity between the 1962 and the 1991 movie is that some of the main characters of the 1962 movie, Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, and Martin Balsam also starred in the 1961 movie, but in a different role. Another tidbit is that the 1991 movie was Gregory Peck's final movie, well almost, he relinquished his retirement temporarily in the 1998 remake of his Moby Dick).



The film received critical acclaim, and also did well at the box office. The movie was a dark depiction of the theme of revenge that makes a ex-convict stalk, threaten and violently attack the person whom he believes is responsible for the time he spends in prison, and also threaten his family.
It is also true that the depiction of people in movies made recently show them as having different shades of character, not only black or white. So, in the 1962 movie, the central character of Sam Bowden was much less complex than the character shown in the 1991 film; here he is shown to have several flaws in his character. Additionally, the ex-convict Max Cady is shown to be justified in getting angry at what had been done to him by his own defense lawyer; his lawyer had hidden a document that could have turned the case and caused Cady to be convicted and sent to jail for 14 years for rape.
The movie is all about the desire for revenge, culminating in a final horrific scene of confrontation in an isolated house in stormy conditions. Max Cady (Robert De Niro in an Oscar nominated role) was being tried for the rape and battery of a 16 year old, and in the trial he was defended by the public defender Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte). Cady is illiterate and does not realize that his lawyer had hidden a document that stated that the vitim was promiscuous, something that might have lessened the charge due to doubts about whether the intercourse was consensual or forced.
Now, 14 years later, Max Cady has learnt a lot about the law, and also learnt that his lawyer had not defended him well. He wants revenge on Bowden (and his family) who live in a quiet small town in North Carolina. It is this stalking of Bowden and the sheer venom that De Niro projects that makes this movie great.

The Green Mile (1999)

The Green Mile is an incredible movie, at one level set in the depths of human despair (where a person can be convicted for a crime to a large degree because he is of an oppressed race (an African-American) in the depths of the American South in 1935 (as racially discriminating a society as possible), and at another level, about the goodness in a person and the gifts that he imparts. The movie is based on a Stephen King novel (published in 1996), and touches on supernatural and paranormal settings in an American prison based on the arrival of Coffey, a convicted murderer waiting on death row.
The movie is set entirely in flashback, with the recounting of the whole tale done in flashback, with one exception, a stunning revelation in the present by the main speaker (currently in a nursing home). The movie was nominated for 4 Academy awards,
* Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role — Michael Clarke Duncan
* Best Picture — David Valdes, Frank Darabont
* Best Sound Mixing — Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Michael Herbick, Willie D. Burton
* Best Adapted Screenplay — Frank Darabont


However, the movie did not win any of the awards that it was nominated for. It did win other awards, just not the Oscars. One thinks that was a miss. The Green Mile may feel slow to some, but like the director Frank Darabont's earlier Stephen King adaptation, The Shahshank Redemption, the movie is very well adapted from the book, and builds up the whole concept of life in the prison, and then introduces the pivotal character, the Black condemned prisoner on Death Row. Most people will not fail to be moved by this film, by the emotions, and by the state of affairs in which a person is condemned to die even when you know that he is innocent because that is the way things used to happen at that time.
The Green Mile refers to the last stretch of green linoleum that condemned prisoners on death row had to walk before they met their fate on 'Old Sparky', the electric chair used for executions. Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), an elderly man in a nursing home, comes in contact with a sadistic employee, which eventually causes him to remember an equally horrible employee (in 1935) along with the great giant Coffey, executed despite being innocent.
Paul is the corrections officer incharge of Death Row inmates and it is his responsibility to take a prisoner on the 'Green Mile' - the last trip of the prisoners. His life takes a turn when a new prisoner arrives. John Coffey (a great role by Michael Clarke Duncan), a great black giant standing 7 foot tall has been convicted of raping and murdering 2 young white girls and is now in Death Role, awaiting his turn with Old Sparky. Soon, they discover something strange about this slow and gentle giant. He is able to display great healing powers by bringing a mouse (Mr. Jingles) back from the dead, cures the urinary infection of Paul, and for good measure, also saves the tumour struck wife of the warden, Hal Moores (James Cromwell). He cannot explain what he does, but he has some great powers.
Into this mixture arrives a sadistic guard, Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison). He is related to the governor, and is able to be sadistic and obnoxious due to this connection. Nobody can control his sadism and ill-treatment of prisoners due to his connections, but a chance comes when a new prisoner William Wharton (Sam Rockwell) arrives. Coffey comes into contact with him, and realizes that William was the actual killer of the 2 girls for which Coffey is on death row. He then displays his powers, getting Wetmore to shoot William, and then to lapse into a catatonic state from which he never recovers. When Paul asks Coffey about all this, he gets shown a vision by Coffey of what actually happened, something that Paul is not able to endure.
However, in spite of his innocence, Coffey is executed in the prison; but this is not the end. Paul, due to physical contact with Coffey, has gained mightily in terms of a life-span. The mouse Mr. Jingles, whom Coffey brought back, is still alive after 50 years, so Paul can only wonder what will happen to his life span. He is already 108 years as of now (as he explains), has outlived his friends and relatives, and feels that the burden of life (which will go on and on - his own Green Mile) is a punishment for having watched an innocent man executed.

My Cousin Vinny (1992)

What a delightful movie. Could there be a person who has seen it and forgotten about it ? I just could not believe it the first time I saw it; how can you have the imagination to take a movie about 2 young guys caught up in small-town America for a crime they did not commit, get in a cousin who is a lawyer without experience along with his girlfriend, and an old grouchy judge, and come up with a movie that has you laughing away at many points. By the end of the movie, in the discussion about the right car, you are positively at the edge of the seat as the tension shoots up, and you know that something big is going to happen that will turn the case, and it does so happen. More about that later.
The movie was directed by Jonathan Lynn, and did not have a big cast at all, with the 3 most prominent people being Joe Pesci in the role of a struggling lawyer, Vincent LaGuardia Gambini; the late Fred Gwynne playing the hard and grouchy judge Chamberlain Haller, and Marisa Tomei in the award winning role of Mona Lisa Vito (she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role). So you start off with these 2 young men from yankee land who while traveling through an Alabama town indulge in some petty shop-lifting.

In a twist of how guilty conscience can get you into deep trouble, they land into massive trouble. Picked up by the police after the clerk of the shop is shot and killed, they assume that they have been picked up for shop-lifting (they are a bit surprised that shop-lifting is a major crime, but this is Alabama, so ..). In this surprise, when told / asked that they shot the clerk, they are astonished and only managed to ask the same thing. However, the person recording their statement does not read the question and astonishment in the reply and soon they are now being booked for murder. Hardly a good feeling to be booked for murder in a far-off city, and to be told that they have actually confessed.
And this brings their cousin Vinny into the picture. Billy's mom gets their cousin Vinny to take the case (a bit surprising that, after all, if your son was arrested for murder, you would want a first rate defense lawyer, not a person who has spent 6 years getting into the bar and has no trail experience). And this brings Joe Pesci along with his fiancee Marisa Tomei.
Joe Pesci has very little experience as a trail lawyer, and manages to rub the judge the wrong way right in the beginning (and the judge is even more conscious, after all, a lawyer from Yankee land must be made to appreciate the way justice happens in Alabama). Fighting with the judge over his appearance, over the way to speak in court, and over his experience (he has to show the judge that he has trial experience while he does not, and he eventually manages to fool the judge on this point); the scenes with the judge and Joe Pesci are first-rate.
Some of his other cultural experiences are also great, you get to see the distaste when he had to eat grits every day because the motel serves only that for breakfast, about not getting enough sleep because of the thunderous noise made by trains in the night near the motel (affecting his sleep and his preparedness to the extent that he finally welcomes the contempt notice issued to him since that allows him to get a good nights sleep in the jail).
He gets better and better in the courtroom, being able to challenge witnesses, and slowly move towards proving his story that it was a different car, and not his cousins car. This leads up to the great finale where he gets his angry fiancee (angry at him for ignoring her and refusing to take help from her) through her incredible knowledge of cars in order to try and discredit the testimony of the FBI Agent. You have to watch this scene to believe it. Overall, a must-watch movie.