Best Film Ever, Really?

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2015)

Let me get this straight, when I first watched this film I loved it. However when I first watched this film, I was thirteen, and agreed with everything I read. I thought the film was too long, with too much fat, and solemn fat at that. I thought Tim Robbins does a good job, and plays the role how he ought to, but the role still doesn't set my world alight. I'm not a Morgan Freeman fan, that's just me personally. I thought this was one of his more believable roles, before he became a parody of himself. The worst thing about this film is the script, and I feel it thrives in moments of silence. I enjoyed the playing of the record, I thought Brooks hanging himself was excellently done, I thought the rape scene was nasty but not too gruelling. These scenes were well judged, because this film could have so easily fallen into torrid and depressing territory, and it does do that a little bit. I felt the iconic moments of wisdom, are really not so clever. To me they sound like quotes written on a page, and scattered throughout.
Overall I think it is a very good film. This is me really reviewing with reference how the average person views the film. What I'm trying to say is that this is not close to best film of all time material. It does nothing groundbreaking or exceptional in terms of filming, or storytelling, or performance or anything. If you watch the film as a whole it's pretty good but not fantastic, if you look at it in bits, some bits are fantastic, others are pretty poor. There's no way I can look at this film an even compare it to Citizen Kane, or Psycho, or Birth of a Nation. It is not on that level of film making.
Eight out of Ten.