Well-crafted saga of crime and innocence, abuse and retribution

Rating: 10/10 (11 April 2015)

Most often when we see a prison film, we think of Oz with a bunch of ruthless convicts, shower rape, and cartons of cigarettes. Shawshank gives a much different perspective. While it has subtle notes of the norm, there is much more emphasis on how one does and passes time, hard time, in a penile system wrought with conflicts. We have a true innocent--a well-read and good-hearted man, Andy Dufresne, caught up in a prepubescent justice system, void of forensic evidence and ballistic reports, teeming with graft and greed on the behalf of the "God- fearing" warden. In this world, the guards are more murderous than the inmates, friends stick together more than families, and becoming conditioned to the system gives parolees nightmares about their impending freedom. This story is akin to The Count of Monte Cristo and Alexandre Dumas even gets a brief shout-out in a library scene. For more reason than I can state in this brief review this is one of the best movies I have ever seen, and one of a seldom group to which I have given a perfect rating. It is worth the two hours of screening time and you will find yourself rooting for Andy and Red to the very end.