The Shawshank Redemption

Rating: 9/10 (14 September 2017)

In my eyes, a marvelous film, but one of the best, if not the best film ever made? I wouldn't agree. I think there are a number of films with better stories, characters, meanings and film making out there. I think the incredible following behind this film has come became this is a film that can appeal to just about anyone. It is, perhaps "impossible" to hate. Where someone may watch 2001 and find it boring or too ambiguous, or may find the likes of Citizen Kane, The Godfather or Lawrence of Arabia to be overly long snooze fests, on average the number of these reactions are greatly reduced by a film like Shawshank because of its happy, neatly tied up ending and it most people may find it more entertaining.
Please do not get me wrong, I do think this is a great film, and when I watch it I cannot find flaws AT ALL. I do not think though that a flawless movie is automatically the best movie, Pulp Fiction I would say is a better film, but still has little flaws here and there, like Butch Coolidge's uninteresting girlfriend getting a little too much screen time.
What I love about this film is how it depicts prisoners, prisoners that have been sentenced to decades of isolation from the outside world. The film never really wants the audience to sympathize with any of the characters except Andy Dufresne, whom we know, or at least assume, is an innocent man. The film shows that prison, for a lot of these men, become their home, and they cannot withstand the outside world. The character Brooks goes into prison early in his adult life, but comes out when he's an elderly man, and cannot handle how much the world has changed, its things like this that I appreciate about this film.
I greatly recommend this film to anyone and everyone, however, I do not believes that this film deserves the #1 spot on the IMDb Top 250, for me it should be around the 70-80 mark, but that's just my opinion.