Robust, majestic film-making makes Shawshank an all-timer

Rating: Null/10 (5 October 2004)

Sometimes the rarest of gems emerges from the most unlikely places, and in the most unlikely environments. Who might expect a sterling cinematic diamond in the rough set in a fictional Maine prison, and derived from a Stephen King short story?
Shawshank is a sweeping tale of friendship, hope, innocence, naivete, brutality, injustice, and vindication, wrapping you in the paradoxical warmth of the prison walls that surround the sympathetic characters who captivate our attention while telling their story.
The theme of Shawshank is well known; Andy Dufresne, a Maine banker, is wrongfully accused of murdering his wife after finding her in a compromising relationship with the golf pro of a local country club. The next 18 years of Andy's life depict the spectrum of the human experience, as we realize Andy's tale of prison life is an allegory for anyone whose life is constrained by imprisonment, whether socially corrective or mentally imposed.
The friendship between Red and Andy carries almost a religious air; in comes Dufrense preaching a gospel of hope to those very nearly deprived of it in their "institutionalized" setting. The danger of an alternate future, and the risks associated with exploring it, magnify the strength of the hope Andy conveys to his prison peers.
Andy's precision-strike vindication against the Warden at the film's conclusion makes his character the Superman to this gang of inmates, exposing the corruption and power-brokering that turned Shawshank from a correctional institution into a dismal penal colony.
This is not a sanitized representation of prison life; the worst kinds of behavior you might know of from prison legends are depicted here. And in the end, it makes you realize that perhaps hope is appreciated most in a place where it seems the least appropriate. If a prisoner can maintain hope in a prison cell, then surely we can, too.