Hope Versus Fear.

Rating: 9/10 (1 October 2018)

My Rating : 9.5/10
'Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.'
This is the thoughtful and paradoxical tagline of the prison-drama saga entitled 'The Shawshank Redemption'.
With a runtime of 2 hours and 22 minutes, The Shawshank Redemption is truly director Frank Darabont's baby. But does it serve to be a dream come true for the viewers? The answer is a resounding yes, according to me.
Though it failed miserably at the time of release it is now heralded as one of the greatest of the greatest that the medium of cinema has ever seen. It is #1 on the imdb Top 250.
It is an impressive, engrossing filmmaking masterpiece adapted from the horror prodigy Stephen King's 1982 novella 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption'. With Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman as its main characters, the movie offers marvelous acting although Robbins' Andy Dufresne scores low with respect to his overall energy I feel. It almost seems artificial, bland and repetitive. Serving a life sentence for murder, Red (Morgan Freeman) is a blend of cynicism and sincerity - a man with a good soul who has done a vile deed in his past. His friendship with Andy is the film's main highlight.
The inspirational, life-affirming and uplifting, old-fashioned style (the music and some of the cinematography) Hollywood production (Castle Rock Entertainment) is a combination of a prison-drama film as well as excellent character study. The film takes the-innocent-man-in-prison theme and gives it a new angle. Instead of focusing on crusades for freedom, the film ventures down a less-travelled road, concentrating on the personal cost of adapting to prison life and how some convicts, once they conform, lose the ability to survive beyond the barbed wire and iron bars of the prison cell. As one of the character puts it : "These walls are funny. First, you hate them, then you get used to them, then you start to depend on them." This is the case with Brooks (excellently portrayed by James Whitmore) who is completely institutionalized and the scenes with him attempting to cope with life outside of prison represents one of the film's most moving and effective sequences.
The chiaroscuro of the entire film is incredible and of the scenes which leaves an impression on one's mind is one when Andy, after escaping from the prison, expresses his joy and freedom by looking up at the dark sky and his upward-facing hands welcoming raindrops to fall over his body.
Darabont's film is a patiently-told, allegorical tale (unfolding like a long-played, sometimes painstakingly long chess game) of friendship, hope, survival, emancipation and ultimate redemption and salvation by the time of the film's finale.
However, on the downside, following a solid two hours of thought-provoking drama, the film deflates like a punctured balloon during its overlong denouement. The all-too-predictable final twenty two minutes move a little slowly and my heart goes out to Darabont who displays a distressing need to wrap up everything into a tidy little package.
All in all, the film is undoubtedly great and only time will tell if it holds up another 25 or so years down the line. It's already been 24 years but I hope the future generations enjoy it just as much and not be put off by the pace and style of the narrative. 9/10.