The Shawshank Redemption - Movie Review

So this week I decided to do something different and allow the people who read my reviews (mostly my family and friends (thank you very much for all your support)) to decide what I review this week. I had four choices, all classic films I never seen before: The Shawshank Redemption, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Groundhog Day. As you can tell, Shawshank won and it won by a lot. Before I watched the film I did look into the film a bit and found out that despite being recognized as immaculate film, it was a box office failure. This was mostly because its premiere in 1994 it was up against other incredible films such as Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, but other reasons I've read include a lack of female characters and its prison setting. That surprised me a lot to hear a film that was suggested so much and is now recognized as masterpiece of film initially didn't do well financially. Well this shows that recent films right now that didn't do too well in the box office can become classics themselves (AKA The Lighthouse).

So what has made this film become such a masterpiece of cinema to people? Well first the original story was written by Stephen King who has made some very memorable works in the past. Second off you got one of the main leads played by excellently by Morgan Freeman as Red. After that we also got another excellent performance from our other main lead, Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne. These two, along with all the other prisoners in Shawshank, did something interesting that really sells the film: Adds humanity to them. They're not perfect people, many are definitely criminals and are still violent criminals in jail. But they also had some positives traits to them that made them... well, human.

Let's look at Red for example, convicted of murdering when he was young and in Shawshank for over 20 years at the start of the film. He's one of those people who can get you anything for the right price, even while imprisoned. At the start of the film he's betting on who, out of the new batch of prisoners, will crack first. I mean that understandable to bet on, fresh meat is easy to beat up and he's kind of risk taker with his illegal trading. But as the film progresses he and the other prisoners begin to change. He gets more hopefully with Andy around, but also gets more tired as he lives for decades imprisoned.

I mean again, Red at the start of the film has been stuck in Shawshank for 20 years. When you're in slammer for that long you lose hope in ever getting out and if you do get out you almost want to get back in because you're kind of stuck in time while the world outside is continually changing. Right now the American prison system is continually overloaded with prisoners, some of them jailed for minor offenses that lock them away for decades. Of course you're going to lose your humanity and the light inside of you. It's a horrible thing to happen. At the end of the film where Red tries for a third time to go on parole and let out of prison he says that he doesn't know what being "rehabilitated" means, that's probably some made-up word for all those fancy, suit-wearing people who are interviewing him to just have a job.

One of the big themes to this movie is the idea of being locked away in an ever changing society. When you're in prison the world outside is evolving while you're stuck in time. When the old-timer Brooks (played by James Whitmore) eventually gets released he's angry about it because prison was his life and now he's now in a world that's so different when he left it. Once, when he was young and free, he saw only a couple of automobiles. Now, when he's been released, everyone owns one. It's a different world, one that he feels he doesn't fit in. He realizes that he can't function in this new society, that it's not for him, and hangs himself. Seeing the buildup to that moment and recognizing what was going to happen was just tearing away at me. That poor guy. Somebody like him though would probably be removed from most films now-a-days because his story ends half-way through the film and at first he doesn't seem like somebody important. But he is important because he shows what prison life can do to a person's psyche.

So with Andy arriving at prison he starts to bring in things that the prisoners haven't had in years. Things such as a beer break, a library, even music. To us people on the outside these are common things of no big importance. But by viewing it through the eyes of the prisoners we realize how important it all means to them. For them a regular day is trying not to be shanked or raped in the shower, things we on the outside are completely shocked by, so having such a different feeling resonates so powerfully. The scene where the record is playing is... how do I describe it? It's kind of a magical moment because all the prisoners just hear this noise over the loudspeakers and they're entranced by the melody. They don't understand all that French, but it's something so soft, delicate, and unknown to them that it's kind of enchanting. Even when Andy gets locked up in the solitary confinement for that stunt you just feel the impact that made on the inmates.

Another major plus I have with the film is the cinematography. There were so many wide, well-panned shots throughout the film. The camera was continually capturing the important points in just the right ways. One of my favorites from the film was the when Andy and his fellow convicts enter Shawshank prison. Such beautiful, wide shots of everyone walking through the crowd and then standing in front of the warden. I also really love the cell block shots, they capture so much detail. The shots also linger very well on some tense moments. The quality of it helps to tell the story without any voice over from Morgan Freeman.

The story though, above everything else (well, maybe not the characters) is the biggest highlight out of the film. Again, original story was from Stephen King who has written a lot of great stories, but even a great story can crumble to dust if not portrayed well. This movie did show a well-crafted story as we see the character change over time. There are great moments of conflict and you feel curious and worried for some of these incarcerated people through the bonds we see on screen. There is one character that I'm unsure if their inclusion is really necessary, that being Tommy because he is on screen for not too long and his main purpose is that he tells Andy that some other guy was the one who committed the crimes that Andy was imprisoned for. But even with that nitpick there's a great sense of time passing and people changing in the prison. It's just an incredible journey and I loved it!

And then there's the big climax where we discover that at long last Andy Dufresne escapes Shawshank. The reveal is perfect. For those who never see the film we think he's hit his breaking point after all the punishment and threats the warden has laid down on him. But then we hear the rock go through the poster on his wall and hit some metal tubes and we see 20 years of digging fully revealed. After that we see the masterful planning as not only he escapes the warden, but gets all the money that the warden believed was being laundered for him. It's fantastic storytelling. The movie could have ended there and with Red's eventual release after 40 years, eventually getting accustomed to society. But they add a little final touch with Andy leaving a message for Red, asking him to meet him in Texas (odd place to meet up) and they eventually reunite and work on a boat to a small boat to Mexico. After what happened with Brooks we don't want that to happen to Red and him and Andy meeting up again was just the right ending for the film.

Now I do have one big problem with the film. This is definitely more of an opinion on the film and not a hard error for the film. At the beginning of the film it really feels like a prison with gangs and some violence and even an attempted male rape. There's a point though where a character leaves the prison and the whole place and story become a lot friendlier. I know it kind of fits with the theme and saying this does conflict a bit with how I felt about Andy changing the place to something better, but it just pushes a bit past the believe-ability of the world and the story loses some of that feeling of confinement. Maybe when I eventually watch this again I'll change my mind on this, but right now I just feel it's a little too whimsical.

None the less, The Shawshank Redemption is just... mesmerizing. I can see why it had such hard competition with all those other films from 1994, but I also see why it's become such a legend of cinema. I have a few problems with it, but when the film ended I felt like I completed something grand and there were tears in my eyes at the beautiful finale.

Tentative Score: 9.25/10

Definitive Score: 9.25/10

Did you know that the prison is still open as a tourist attraction? It's located in Mansfield, Ohio (not Maine) and I hope one day to go see it myself. I want to see the cells where Red and Andy and all the rest live, the drain where Andy escaped after crawling through 500 yards of sewage and shit. Just what a great movie this was. Thank you all for participating in my movie poll. Had such a wonderful time. I guess in the future I'll do another one of these.