A Bit Over-Rated Perhaps, But Still A Good Movie With Great Performances From Freeman and Robbins

Rating: 7/10 (31 August 2002)

Deliberately (some might even say slowly in places) paced, "The Shawshank Redemption" alternates between offering a grittily realistic portrayal of life in prison and flights of fancy that make the story too unbelievable to really be accepted. There is an interesting subplot (which doesn't take up much of the movie but which does make the viewer ponder) about the difficulties of adjusting to life in the real world after extended periods of incarceration.
The performances from the two leads are excellent. Morgan Freeman puts on his usual outstanding performance as "Red" - the wise old con through whose eyes the story is told, and Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresnce, a young banker wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover who has to adjust to the nightmare of prison life. Among the supporting cast I was impressed with Bob Gunton as the Bible-spouting but corrupt Warden Norton, who uses Andy's financial expertise to enrich himself, and James Whitmore as Brooks, imprisoned for fifty years and terrified when he is finally granted parole and who, unable to adjust to life on the outside, yearns only to be back in the only home he ever knew - prison. It's an interesting twist - experience also by Red later on in the movie - that freedom can seem to be like a prison for those so accustomed to the regimentation of life in an institution.
While the movie is impressive and engrossing all the way through, though, there are some weaknesses to the story that bothered me a bit. (There are some spoilers ahead.)
I found it difficult to imagine prison guards from all over the State of Maine bringing their tax returns to Andy. It just didn't seem to me like something that would have happened. It also struck me as unlikely that a letter-writing campaign from one solitary prisoner (even one that lasted six years, one letter a week) would have convinced the State to fund the improvements Andy got for the prison library. I would rather expect that after a while the letters would simply start to be discarded. Andy's escape also bothered me. It was too "easy" - even though it took twenty years. And how did he keep that suit so spotless and unwrinkled while crawling through that dirty sewer? Mind you, the moments leading up to the discovery of his escape were among the most dramatic in the movie. The very end of the story was also clearly telegraphed some time before.
Frankly speaking, I think "The Shawshank Redemption" is a bit over-rated here at IMDb, being ranked the second best movie of all time, but this is still a very, very good movie, and an excellent portrayal (through Andy) of the survival of the human spirit in even the toughest times. Personally, I give it a 7/10.