Not Bad, Just Overrated

Rating: 6/10 (15 August 2016)

Frank Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption" is a good movie. It has a solid cast, a solid script, and solid cinematography. The film is at times engaging, moving and thrilling. You'd be hard-pressed to find anything particularly wrong with it.
But that doesn't make it a great movie.
"The Shawshank Redemption" is a very safe film. Not so much in terms of story, but in how it's executed. Frank Darabont directs the film competently, and seems content to stay at that level the whole time. Roger Deakins, possibly the best cinematographer working today, seems to be phoning it in, and the usually excellent Thomas Newman provides an unmemorable score. Everyone seems to be operating at three- quarters cylinder, enough to be good, but never enough to be amazing.
This extends to most of the performances. Tim Robbins as the wrongfully convicted Andy Dufresne is not a particularly engaging lead. Bob Gunton and Clancy Brown are fun in antagonistic roles, but they've both given much better performances. The ensemble cast of prisoners is game, but very few of them are given much to do.
The standout performance is easily Morgan Freeman's Red, who helps Andy navigate life in Shawshank State Penitentiary, and that has more to do with Morgan Freeman being Morgan Freeman than it does anything to do with the role.
There is little wrong with "The Shawshank Redemption". But it takes more than having nothing wrong to make a great film. A great film requires risky decisions, new ideas or masters of their craft bringing their A-game. "The Shawshank Redemption" has none of these, and that's not a bad thing. It's a decent film. Just not a masterpiece.