Can there be enough compliments to describe this film?

Rating: 10/10 (20 March 2003)

Complete void of spoilers herein, only read on if you like ridiculous praise of a movie on a mammoth scale.
I just watched The Shawshank Redemption for the second time, and for the second time it took my breath away. There is just no real word to describe the extraordinary piece of cinema that has been created here.
It tells the story of wrongly accused murderer, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), and his story of survival inside a maximum security prison, aided by his friendship with 'the only guilty man inside Shawshank', Ellis 'Red' Reddings (Morgan Freeman). Along the way it branches into at least six different side stories that, halfway through the movie, while still entertained, one wonders what they have to do with the plot. The answer is everything, as becomes apparent by the end.
I won't bore you with details of the individual craftsmanship that went into this movie, but I will advise anyone who has not seen it to see it, and as soon as possible. Keep watching until the end, and there is no possible way you can be disappointed. It is absolutely masterly directed by Frank Darabont, and while I thought that his other Stephen King-based film, The Green Mile, was fairly slow and self-indulgent, this isn't. It is drawn out and long, but absolutely impeccable and amazingly inspirational. It delivers the message that even in the face of abject adversity, hope will always prevail. This message was recently hammed up quite terribly in "The Two Towers", but in The Shawshank Redemption, just one very simple quote sums it up: "Hope is a good thing. Possibly the best thing. And no good thing ever dies"
This is one for the ages. I cannot imagine that the uplifting effect of this movie will ever die. There is no possible way it could be better. The only possible reason I can think of for not liking or being inspired by this movie is that you just don't want to. There are no two ways about it. Even after nine years, this holds strong as an absolute masterpiece of film-making, and a staggering achievement. Five stars out of five.