The greatest movie of all time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: Null/10 (26 June 2005)

Wait, no it isn't. I have a hard time understanding why this movie is rated at #2 on IMDb. The acting is good, I'll give you that, but it's inexplicable how a standard prison drama that hauls every clichÃ© out of the book has enchanted so many people. I mean really, does it say anything new? Have any of its images or dialog made their way into pop culture (the sure sign of an influential film)? No and no. When you really look at it, this is actually a pretty boring movie, and the sleep-inducing musical score doesn't help.
The most objectionable thing about this movie is how the convicts are made to be funny, humorous, engaging. I assure you that if you ever stepped foot into a prison, they won't be anything like the characters you see in the movie. They are in prison for a reason, usually because they are uncontrollably violent, anti-social, and manipulative. They are killers and rapists, thieves, inhuman monsters; putting a friendly face on them does a disservice to the people who worked so hard to get them in there. The sheeple who love this movie are the same kind of people who were hoodwinked into believing that Robert Stroud (the Birdman of Alcatraz) was a quiet, gentle, kindly man because of the movie they made about him. In actuality, Stroud was just the opposite: he was a bitter, violent, poisonous little man who wrote detailed child porn. It doesn't help that Andy's innocence is never shown, it's only implied. Why should I root for a man who might have killed his wife, if they won't show that he didn't do it? The only thing Andy has going for him is a convict in another prison who confessed to the crime. It's not enough for me to believe in his innocence.
I guess Morgan Freeman's soothing, grandfatherly narration, Andy's cavorting on a Mexican beach, and the warden's desperate final denouement might all have something to do with the popularity of this standard prison movie, but like I said it's all been done before, and to better effect, in other movies. As an example, James Cagney's howl of despair when he learns his mother dies in "White Heat" is an electrifying moment, and is loaded with more humanity than the icy and distant Shawshank Redemption.