I miss my friend

Rating: 10/10 (16 May 2005)

In the 11 years since the release and realization of the brilliance of this film, I'm sure many, many legions of people have written reviews that summarily praise (and viscously, ignorantly degrade - you know who you are, those whose reviews appear under the "hated" tag on the reviews pages) and criticize the movie. I can't add anything that hasn't been said before, except just say how much this movie affected me and how much I love it.
Tim Robbins, always a great actor, and always very, very human. Morgan Freeman, c'mon, who da man? Who da MAN?!?!? HE DA MAN!!! He DA MAN!!! He DA smooth-walkin', smoother-talking', illest muthaf***in' epitome of "cool". And not a bad actor, either, heh heh (yes, I know I am drastically understating that fact).
The direction - flawless. Every shot, every camera angle, every color tone (plus the quality of the film and the cameras themselves) embody such finesse, such power. Humanity! That's what the word I was looking for, the word that describes what every frame overwhelmingly emanates, even during the "brutal" scenes (I put "brutal" in quotes because I unfortunately have seen plenty of sick s@%* in my life and am now sadly desensitized to movie violence; violence on the news and in real life though, DAMN I get sickened and angered at perpetrators). The very human friendship twixt the leads are very well handled, never turning into cutesy schmaltz or soap-y melodrama.
The writing. Yes, I know. "How the hell does his cell open up into a pipe drain? That's horrible plot!!!!!!" Ask yourselves: If his cell wall didn't open up over the pipe, would he have escaped? Would the story have been the same AT ALL if his cell opened up anywhere else other than that river of s@%*? And then think about Andy. Would someone of his intelligence would have discontinued his digging and succumbed to madness if what he saw when he looked through the initial tiny hole on the other side was anything other than a road to freedom? Convenient plot twist? Sure! But not outlandish. It could happen (not like a New York Cop winning a $4M lottery ticket and tipping a waitress half, no matter how much he wanted to get with her). Very good storytelling and very tight screen writing.
This movie is great. Plain and simple. It did confirm one thing in general to me, though, especially in these times of moral conflict that is dividing the "greatest nation on the face of the earth" bitterly: Those who thump the bible the hardest, usually cling to it the hardest out of fear and out of guilt.
Love this film.