A Contrarian View

Rating: Null/10 (2 April 2003)

Okay, let's say this from the word go...Shawshank Redmeption might as well be called Fantasy Island visits Alcatraz. Lets just see how many shopworn prison movie cliches the picture has:
1.) A corrupt warden 2.) Brutal guards 3.) Homosexual gang attacks (at least not in a shower) 4.) Innocent man sent to jail has a journey of self discovery 5.) All illiterate convicts speak flawless english and spout witty phrases. 6.) No racial tension, in fact no blacks with any character except Morgan Freeman doing a version of the kindly butler from a Shirley Temple picture...after all, it appears all he is there for is to be the witty sidekick and supply cigarettes and pictures of scantily clad women. 7.) A black man runs the illegal smuggling into the prison 8.) Nobody in jail is bad, or even seems like they could be violent, they are all a bunch of happy go lucky working class stiffs. I guess this means we should be able to identify with rapists and murderers as they are just like us...a chilling thought. 9.) Nobody except the hero ever attempts an escape or seems to want to escape, 10.) Over use of metaphors such as rain as a metaphor of washing himself clean of his past and putting on a new life.
I am not saying that all prison films have to be a version of Scared Straight, but come on, this is clearly a fantasy prison and the very unreality of it undercuts anything the movie might be trying to say. The Shawshank Redemption is in this reviewers eye nothing more than another holier than thou morality play packaged as "gritty realism" all because it is based in a prison...ho-hum.