Deserves all the credit it gets- absolutely AMAZING

Rating: 10/10 (18 January 2003)

Frank Darabont is a genius. In one of the most critically acclaimed, famous movies in Hollywood history, the director from France has created a work of art. Superb performances from Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman carry the film throughout its fairly lengthy duration of 137 minutes smoothly. The film has a very slow pace, but somehow it is incredible absorbing, not boring in the slightest. The story follows Andy Dufresne, (Tim Robbins), a young banker who, despite protesting innocence, is jailed with back to back life sentences for killing his wife and her lover that she ran away with. Once at Shawshank Prison, he developes a friendship with Ellis Boyd Redding- "Red" (Morgan Freeman). Red is a man who "knows how to get things", i.e he smuggles things in from the outside world. What unfolds is not what you might expect- it's not the kind of prison film that has a gritty, explicit view of the bad things that happen in prison. Whilst this is shown to a certain extent, its not as bad as it could be and the bad sides generally come from the corrupt screws rather than the cons. This is a moral tale, as suggested by the tagline "Fear can hold you prisoner....hope can set you free". It's the kind of film that you can enjoy immensely, watch again and again, and really take a message about life away from. My favourite film, along with Pulp Fiction of the same year, I give it 10/10