This movie worms its way into your soul.

Rating: 10/10 (14 February 2005)

I have a friend who hasn't seen the Shawshank Redemption, and his comment was essentially this: "I hate prison movies, and I hate religion movies, so I'm not gonna see a flick that has both aspects in it." His loss. This movie, based on a Stephen King novella, is on my all-time top ten. Of course it has morals and many lessons we can learn, but bottom line, it is a great movie. Even though we know that Tim Robbins is innocent, he acknowledges his guilt on a more subtle level, his failure to be a good person. That he is in prison affords him the opportunity to become a "good" man for the first time in his life. He touches the soul of many inmates, in that he educates them in some of the finer things in life, namely, good music and great literature. (He corrects an inmate's pronunciation of Alexandre Dumas' last name from "Dumbass" to the correct "Dumah") The last quarter of the movie is spot-on great. We are always touched by redemption themes, just look at how popular "Scrooge" and "It's a Wonderful Life" have become over the years. Shawshank simply is too good to miss.