Good but ludicrously overrated

Rating: 6/10 (21 April 1999)

I quite like this film but it wouldn't make my top 100. The idea it's the greatest film in history is laughable.
Of course the acting's terrific. Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins are solid as ever, even if Bob Gunton and Clancy Brown (the Baddies) chew the scenery. And that's the problem - everything is so terribly black and white, with every character springing straight out of a three word summary. Our hero is Good But Flawed, Red is Good And Noble, the Warden is Just Plain Bad and his henchman is Reminiscent Of Another Film (okay, four words).
I've never been inside a prison, but I can't believe all the prisoners would be so damn nice. There's the "sisters" - a bunch of horrid rapists, of course, but they're nothing a small plot contrivance can't eliminate. The "sisters" aside, there's nary a cross word from a prisoner in the whole film.
Racism is also curiously absent. American prisons today are notorious hot-beds of racism. Martin Luther King's dream is bizarrely alive and well in Shawshank, where colour doesn't get a mention in twenty years of "history".
This total lack of realism means it's not really a film about prison at all. And what kind of "character" film can be centred around someone who seems entirely flawless (other than perhaps in his choice of attorney).
I can whinge about the mechanics of the film as well. Voiceover narration is irritating enough - but Red narrating events at which he was not present? Pur-lease. And that final scene - talk about a director who didn't know when to shout "cut". It didn't need much self control to stop at the point Red heads towards Mexico - films for grown-ups shouldn't need endings that resolve any uncertainty.
Speaking of the director, isn't it odd how the maker of the "Greatest film in the world ever" is also credited for The Fan, Eraser, The Blob and The Fly II? It's as if Orson Welles directed "Plan 9 from Outer Space", or Francis Ford Copolla helmed "Megaforce".
I don't mean to make this out to be a bad film - it's far from that. But anyone who rates it the greatest ever should try "Godfather", "Goodfellas", "Citizen Kane", "Casablanca" - something, anything that's not so *worthy*.