Shawshank Redemption (1994, In the year of our Lord) was an independant film, starring Tim Robbins & Morgan Freeman. I will admit it, my apprehension about films of the independant genre was lessened when I was told this classic was among them. One of the most well-known films made, Shawshank Redemption is possibly one of the most satired films I've seen in a good, long while, not to mention media content with similar premises. Let's go to Prison is a comedy with a similar setup, not to mention satires made by adult shows like Family Guy and Robot Chicken. By my scale, the film gets a 4.5/5. To be fair, it's kind of hard to dislike a movie narrated by Morgan Freeman.I enjoyed how the movie was centered around a man who seemed to be entirely unshaken by his surrounding. When life got him down, he shrugged and sighed and moved on. And perhaps the reason he passed through that fire (or waste tunnel) and made it out clean was his hope. It is now obvious that from the very beginning what his plans were. All that we saw in the meantime was the horrors that he had to live through in the meantime.
"...there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours." -- Andy
I'm not a firm believer in most spiritual things, besides the good Lord, but if there is something I can get behind, it's the power of hope. An idea is the hardest thing for someone to transfer to another, since we use mediums like words to convey emotion and feeling. So when someone catches hold of something, it is personalized to them, a truth they alone recognize make part of themselves. And once it takes hold, there is little that can ever exercise it from the mind. And of ideas, nothing is as universally strong as hope. To look at the sky, and believe something better might come, if you make yourself available to chance, just a chance. That is what Andy felt, and why he never let the situation get the best of him.
The way I've been building this movie up, I bet you wonder why it is that I rated it below 5/5. I really wish I could, but the beginning is what's throwing me off. I've spent so much time trying to convince myself to forget it, but the premise for Dufresne's imprisonment is just too ridiculous. You're telling me that a rich banker can't afford a lawyer who can win a case where the murder weopon was never found, Andy's gun was never related to the murder weopon, and literally no physical evidence exists to put andy at the scene other than his word, which if that's all you have to go on, you don't believe that he didn't do it, which is also his word? Dear God, a judge would laugh the prosecution right out of the court if it weren't for the severity of the crime's nature.
"Get busy living, or get busy dying." -- Red
But in the end, it is only a small failing in the the grand scheme of one of the last centuries most memorable films. Red, the old man who seems to know everything that happens, narrating. First the Sisters, and later the guards, playing the animalistic villian. And a cast of colerful characters to surround our young protaganist, Andy, giving him a rich experience that Andy, with past sins paid, would like nothing more than to forget.
"They say the Pacific has no memory. That's were I want to live... The rest of my life."
Thanks to doc for accepting this instead of the Good the Bad and the Ugly
Stay Savvy my Friends,
Erudito
Socratic Disucussion Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIUZlBHk3ks
Resources:
moviegoofs.blogspot.com
movieretrospect.blogspot.com
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