"Fear can hold you prisoner, Hope can set you free"

Rating: 10/10 (18 August 2006)

"The Shawshank Redemption" takes a look at life behind bars from a whole, new perspective. Rather than your basic break for freedom plot, this film focuses on the cost of adapting to prison life and how some convicts, once they conform, lose the ability to survive beyond the iron bars and barbed wire. The story takes place between the years of 1947 through to 1966 and follows the struggle of one-time successful and promising banker Andy Dufresne. Dufresne was convicted of the murder of his wife and lover when he is sent to Shawshank State Prison and sentenced to life behind bars. It is in Shawshank where he forms a friendship with Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, the "Sears and Roebuck" of Shawshank and uses his "hope" to get through life behind bars. It is he ("Red") who narrates the film which, rather than interfere upon the story, sustains and facilitates the film to make for an incredibly powerful and moving account of life inside prison. Director, Frank Darabont directs a magnitude of remarkable performances. Most notably from Tim Robbins who gives an exceptional performance as Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman who's performance as 'Red' makes for a fascinating and intriguing film. Fine supporting performances also come from Bob Gunton (Warden Samuel Norton), William Sadler (Heywood), and Clancy Brown (Captain Byron T. Hadley) but remarkably, one of the first-class performances comes from James Whitmore as Brooks Hatlen. The scenes with him attempting to cope with life outside of Shawshank make for one of the film's most moving, effective and powerful sequences. "The Shawshank Redepmtion" is a truly remarkable film and is utterly unique not just in the prison drama genre but in the history of film its self.
My Rating : An Outstanding 10/10