After two major feature films, the most immediate linking theme in the work of Frank Darabont, besides Oscar mania and a dependence on Stephen King, is an obsession with tall people. In The Shawshank Redemption, Darabont cast the gargantuan Tim Robbins as the poor fool locked up in prison in the '30s. In the more recent The Green Mile, also based on a King text, he casts character actor Michael Duncan as the behemoth …showed first 75 words of 856 total…

…showed last 75 words of 856 total…having his name on the credits of movies that feature remarkable ensemble acting: Morgan Freeman and Robbins in Shawshank, and Tom Hanks, David Morse, Barry Pepper, David Morse, and Jeffrey DeMunn in The Green Mile. If Darabont has not visually or narratively aspited to more in a career that is both long and short at the same time, he at least knows his limitations and mines cunningly the thin if abundant vein of his talent.