A cute and sentimental prison drama?

Rating: 7/10 (3 April 2004)

Quite frankly, this is a movie of clichés. You want examples, I got examples! "Some birds are not meant to be caged, their feathers are too bright" or "Get busy living, or get busy dying" or "Terrible thing, to live in fear" or "It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away" or "need it so you don't forget. Forget that there are places in the world that aren't made out of stone" or "Hope is a good thing, and good things can never die" - if you say so, sensei!
Problem is Stephen King never leaves anything to the imagination. He tells us everything - if Tim Robbins organises some special event for the inmates, like playing music over the loudspeaker, Morgan Freeman's voice will come right out and suggest a few reasons why this episode is so wonderful/significant, the nature of which are very similar through each episode of the movie. And Darabont obviously likes the idea of assuming the audience are very thick, and will not see or experience anything unless you dictate to them what to experience, and has made his movie by it.
Also, i'm starting to be wary of Thomas Newman as a composer doing exactly what Darabont has done as a director: employ a formula that has worked in the past. His score for Shawshank is calculated on the same formula of highs, lows, and general atmosphere as in his score for Road to Perdition, American Beauty, Meet Joe Black, Horse Whisperer, Scent of a Woman, and The Green Mile, not surprisingly. If you think about all these movies, they all have a similar feel, they all go for a similar nostalgia, haunting sadness - which admittedly i find very appealing, but i'm starting to worry at how similar they all are.
I think encouraging this movie too much is like rewarding someone for employing a formula very successfully - instead of taking risks and doing something edgy that still turns out to be enjoyable and brilliant. Most people do not evaluate movies based on their IMDb ranking, but i certainly would be surprised if any major lists ranked this in their top ten.
That said, this is still a good movie, with good performances, a good unity, despite its necessarily episodic nature, and it looks great. Its only for movies people insist on putting on best-ever lists that i require a certain originality, the feeling that what this movie gives you you could not get anywhere else (I believe this is why movies like Citizen Kane, Vertigo, 2001, Raging Bull, Third Man, Grand Illusion, Persona and, for me, Exterminating Angel, are constantly mentioned on such lists, and deservedly). What this movie gave me, I could get from reading any other Stephen King story, or seeing any other movie adaptation of a King story.