Talk about writing your own epitaph. " . . . sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long," concludes the voiceover narrator of Frank Darabont's adaptation of the Stephen King serial novel. After watching more than three hours of The Green Mile, you may well feel that truer words were never spoken, or more welcome. Not that Darabont is known for his concision -- his overrated Shawshank Redemption, an adaptation of a much shorter King novella, pushes two and a half hours. Perhaps it's the imitative fallacy -- both films are about men in prison, doing time as they face a life or, in this case, a death sentence. Although excusable in the Dickensian serial-novel format of the original, Darabont's repetitions, broad comedy, bloated stereotypes, and languorous padding represent cruel and unusual punishment.

Not that the film is without redemption -- that, after all, is its theme. In search of forgiveness is old Paul Edgecomb (Dabbs Greer), who breaks down while watching Top Hat on TV in a rest home. We flash back to a Louisiana prison during the Depression, where young Paul (a perfunctory Tom Hanks) is the head screw on death row, the so-called Green Mile. A nice guy except for his occupation of putting people to death, Paul begins to have doubts when John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan, doing wonders with a cliché), a simple-minded, seven-foot-tall black giant convicted of killing two little girls, moves onto the Mile. In one of several bizarrely homoerotic moments, John grabs Paul's crotch through the bars, lights flash and burn out, and Paul discovers that his urinary-tract infection has been cured.

Not only does John seem innocent, he can perform miracles. Which leaves Paul and the movie with a moral dilemma -- not so much how to deal with John's death sentence, but what to do about the whole problem of good, evil, and human suffering. And to its credit, The Green Mile gives a fair account of itself, validating not only John's lament that love is the ultimate tool of hate but the idea that hate, when properly manipulated, can serve the cause of love. If by nothing else, the film is redeemed by a scene in which John, halo'd by a movie-projector light, glimpses Heaven as Fred and Ginger dance cheek to cheek. Overlong and potholed, The Green Mile is still worth the journey.