Graceful, intriguing Tim Robbins triumph

Rating: 9/10 (16 March 2006)

The Shawshank Redemption is in a league with Casablanca as a movie you can watch over and over, catching different nuances each time and bringing your own life experiences each time you watch it. Tim Robbins gives the performance of his career and this is the movie for which Morgan Freeman should have won an Oscar (a shame he had to wait for Million Dollar Baby.) There are many twists and turns and I defy anyone to watch the ending without tears running down their face. In fact, the entire last third of movie is filled with marvelous scenes. If there is any drawback to this movie, it is that it is a shade too long, meaning it's often butchered when it is shown with commercials on TV. Rent this, or better yet, buy it to get the full thrust of it. Definitely on my personal top 10.