Competent but overrated

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2018)

While definitely not a bad movie, I still am flabbergasted at the amount of hype, that The Shawshank Redemption received, long after it's diasappointingly low box office oppening.
To me this story about good people that did something bad in their past, or even nothing bad at all, while being at the mercy of some very bad people, who are drunk on the power, they have over the prisoners, comes of as very schmaltzy.
This movie had the opportunity to paint it's characters in a grey area, on both sides, but instead tries to bring home the point, that people who are prisoners don't have to be bad at all. While this of course being true, the style in which Tim Robbins' and Morgan Freeman's characters are depicted, feels sugarcoted and unsincere to me.
So much so, that I get a feeling of secondhand embarresment, when watching the Shawshank Redemption.