Have we gone over the top with this film?

Rating: 6/10 (9 August 2008)

Many folk rate Shawshank Redemption as one of the best films they have ever seen. I'm not so impressed. Firstly, I agree that the absence of special effects is a boon in any 1990s film. Secondly, Freeman and Robbins act well and are well-directed. The storyline, though, lacks subtlety (not in the telling - this is a very well directed film - but as a story) and Dufesne comes over as a kind of everything-he-touches, incarcerated upper-middle class Forrest Gump. The film is suffused with a kind of Manichean morality which tips over too readily into sentimentality (again, despite the best efforts of Freeman and Robbins) and which, ultimately, I found cloying.
Perhaps, though, I'm being too harsh. Is it just that the film is a lot better than the story from which it is taken? Rita Hayworth: eat your heart out?