Credit where credit is due.

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 2006)

This film is, love it or hate it, flawless. I find myself unable to pick out any one element of this movie that was poorly executed or inconsistent. The Director, Frank Darabont, despite his much-less-than-impressive filmography successfully animates every scene and character in living detail. Whats more is the life and detail he brought to his screenplay.
Originally published under Richard Bachman, Stephen King's once-pseudonym, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" is one of the most miserable short stories ever hacked out by any desperately uninspired fiction author in history. The book makes no attempt to build or define characters, background, or story progression. It basically apexes around the one scene in the prison theatre where the writer clumsily tries to convey the point of the book: as hopeless as a man's situation is, his dreams and fantasies live on. After King's catharsis he seemingly looses any real interest in his story and apathetically caps it off several pages later.
Frank Darabont not only masterfully directed this film but deserves much more credit for crafting 95% of this movie purely from his own imagination and being able to construct a very tangible plot line from complete tripe. Credit where credit's due, Stephen King doesn't even deserve royalties.