#The Green Mile Is Frank Darabont’s Underappreciated Gem

Ooooooh, that Percy Wetmore. In my mind, Percy is up there with Stephen King’s most reprehensible villains. I like Annie Wilkes in “Misery” more than Percy, but Pennywise, the child-eating killer clown, is maybe more likable. Percy just flat out sucks, and what he does to Eduard Delacroix is unforgivable.

Doug Hutchison fully commits to this role. The real life of the actor is troubling to say the least, but in “The Green Mile,” it’s clear that he wasn’t afraid to be hated by the audience, and his work in this film has to be commended.

During quarantine I found that I missed watching movies with my friends and family so much that I turned to YouTube reaction videos to replicate the experience of introducing films I love to people I love. Oddly enough “The Green Mile” is a common title to see the various (mostly super young) YouTubers react to and, boy, is it a joy to see these poor bastards go from laughing to seething hatred aimed at Percy and then finally crying their eyes out.

“The Shawshank Redemption” is a perfect movie and deserves every single bit of praise it has received over the years, but it is a shame that it seems to overshadow “The Green Mile,” which, despite being another Stephen King period prison drama, is such a radically different movie that it deserves to have its own spotlight.

Maybe the movie’s time to stand alone is coming. Perhaps the new generation will discover it through these YouTube reaction videos and come to appreciate the film as its own thing, not a story to be automatically compared to Darabont’s previous film. Whatever the legacy of the film will be, I’m confident it will live on and be responsible for the sale of tens of thousands of tissues.