"The film includes a high level of Judeo-Christian spiritual content, and some of the symbolism is spread on a little thickly. Those who can"t see similarities between The Green Mile"s J.C. and an historical figure with the same initials are wearing blinders" (Berardinelli, The Green Mile).

             In The Hurricane, a gifted boxer is wrongly convicted of murder in Patterson, New Jersey, in 1966. Like the character John Coffey in The Green Mile, the victim is a powerful black man. Unlike Coffey, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, played brilliantly by Denzel Washington, is not a fictional character. This is the story of Carter, a championship fighter, who is framed for a murder he did not commit. Carter grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, a middle son among seven children. His parents had a stable, long-lasting marriage, provided well for the family, and raised their other six children without significant problems. Only Rubin seems to have acquired a criminal record, one that resulted in his being sentenced to a juvenile reformatory for assault and robbery shortly after his 14th birthday.

             At age seventeen, Carter escaped from the reformatory in 1954 and joined the United States Army. Several months after he completed infantry basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, he was shipped to Germany, where he became interested in boxing. By all accounts, Carter was a poor soldier, and was court-martialed four times for charges ranging from insubordination to being AWOL. In May, 1956, the Army discharged him as "unfit for military service", well before his scheduled date of separation.

             Shortly after his return to New Jersey, Carter was arrested for his reformatory escape, and served an additional year. He was released in 1957. Less than two months later, Carter robbed and brutally beat three people, including a middle-aged woman, allegedly after drinking heavily. Convicted of these crimes, Carter spent four years in Trenton State Prison and Rahway State Prison.