Excellent: an inspiring tale of hope and redemption

Rating: 9/10 (12 June 2006)

It's a shame that The Shawshank Redemption was never as critically or commercially successful during it's run in theatres, as perhaps it should have been. If it were, then maybe the travesty of having Forrest Gump take the 1994 Best Picture Oscar could have been avoided, the award collected, instead, by either by this film or by Tarantino's groundbreaking Pulp Fiction, which were both stronger efforts. But I digress.
Beginning in 1946, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted for the murders of his wife and her lover. He's sentenced to serve two life terms back to back in Shawshank Prison, ruled with an iron fist by the Warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton) and the foul-mouthed, violent Captain Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown). Shawshank, Andy soon discovers, is a place of corruption and injustice, which begins at the Guards and stretches to the Warden himself, and includes a group of sodomites known as "the Sisters". Amidst this, Andy finds himself part of an unlikely group of friends, Red (Morgan Freeman), the "man who knows how to get things" and Brooks (James Whitmore), the good-natured, aging old-timer and librarian, among them. As we watch these men through the next 20 years of prison life, a tragic subplot develops with the Brooks character which deals with the nature of spending too long behind bars, and how, eventually, the bars and walls of prison can influence even a man of Brooks' good nature.
When a young convict arrives at Shawshank with proof that Andy is innocent, injustice at the prison rears it's ugly head. Andy is faced with a choice to make  "get busy livin', or get busy dying"  and he does just that, propelling the film from that point forward into a rousing, uplifting climax which tests the bonds of friendship between himself and Red, and ultimately provides the audience with an important message about hope, salvation, and redemption.
Writer/director Darabont reclines in his role and lets Shawshank's modestly-paced, subdued screenplay flow through it's 142 minutes. The film achieves the rare state of never seeming to drag or feel rushed. There's no flashy action here; rather, Darabont allows his audience to be compelled by the dialogue and the array of terrific performances, from the assured conviction with which Robbins believes in his innocence, to the thoughtful grace of Freeman's Red.