Forget the rest...

Rating: 10/10 (23 January 2000)

Apologies to all proud Anglophiles, but I have never heard the English language sound so beautiful as during Freeman's narration in the last 20 minutes. Our language has to compete with beautiful languages like Italian, Spanish and French and Darabont's writing really "stepped up to the plate" here.
No clichéd romantic tragedy of unrequited love had to unfold (there was only ONE female speaking role!!!). Only a story of friendship, hope and inner strength was needed to bring tears to the eyes during the final narration.
Unlike many movies of the nineties, this movie gets its strength from fantastic characterisation, great pen-to-paper skills and Deakin's cinematography; words and pictures, not 200 gigabtyes of cyber-FX!
Despite my admiration of James Cameron, this movie beats "Titanic" as well as classics like "Casablanca," "African Queen," "Citizen Kane," "Gone with the Wind," and Hitchcock's "North by Northwest."