Eye-Opening!

Rating: 10/10 (5 October 2014)

I am 22; And I was craving a well plotted movie the other day. And quite frankly I was quite bored of fantasy movies. I wanted to watch something that had to do with the system. I decided to go through the list of top movies of all times, according to IMDb. The Shawshank Redemption was ranked number one based on popularity. I watched the trailer and I immediately fell in love with the fact that it was narrated by Morgan Freeman and that it was about the prison system in the previous century. The movie The Shawshank Redemption Is about a character named Andy Dufresne, an introverted,young,successful banker. In 1947, one fine morning, Andy finds himself guilty of a crime that he repeated says he didn't commit. However, the evidence says otherwise. They charge him for murdering his wife and her lover. Double life sentence. He soon finds himself in one of the harshest prison in the country. There he meets Red and his friends. Andy takes his time but slowly, tactically, befriends them. Andy's wide range of skills helps him get on good terms with the prison guards, and even the Prison Warden. The Warden soon finds Andy so useful that he starts making Andy help him with his bank statements, allowing him to launder money without any suspicion.Soon Tommy Williams enters the picture, and what he discloses changes everything. The movie was very well directed. However, I wish the story focused a little more on how Andy manages to create a false identity. Overall, the movie was very interesting. I loved how they portrayed all the inmates and their problems. I very much appreciated the fact that they didn't show the prison rapes in details, and left most of it to the imagination. Andy's unreadable characteristics were very well played by the actor Tim Robbins. Throughout the whole time, I simply couldn't figure out whether he was really innocent or not, until Tommy Williams enters the picture. Andy's and Red's friendship develops very realistically. The little jokes they share were very amusing, especially the first time they talk, when Andy asks Red why his name is Red. The villainous Warden's character was very unpredictable. His "Strict Christian" image was brilliant. It made it seem that he might have a little bit of goodness inside, but as the story unveils, he turns out to be pure evil. The movie overall was intriguing. It does show some real issues that inmates go through- discrimination, sexual frustration, institutionalization and all forms of abuse. I think the movie is very eye opening. I think the message it wants to send out is that one should get to know the system and how it works so that when the system turns abusive, one can do something about it.