The Shawshank redemption, ahhh what a film, but a film that’s not really all that readily available so when I saw it on the market yesterday for a fiver, I just had to buy it even though I was a bit sceptical as to whether it was copied or not, but I’m glad to say it wasn’t!
The Shawshank Redemption is probably one of the best films made. It ranks #2 in the IMDB ( http://www.imdb.com) top 250 films of all time. Take a look at some of the reviews on this site and you’ll see that nearly everyone has given it 5/5. Then again, what could you expect from a film adaptation of a Stephen king novel. Most of his novels that have been made into film have been exceptionally good, apart from the odd few. If you have seen The Green Mile (also a Stephen King adaptation) then you will know what to expect from The Shawshank Redemption, however, I would go as far as saying that The Shawshank Redemption was better.
Moviefan online says – ‘This is one of the best films of the last ten years and probably of all time, despite it’s lack of award recognition’
I say – ‘One of the best films I have seen, truly moving’
Directed by Frank Darabont, this was bound to be a good movie in the first place. He has directed masterpieces such as The Green Mile, The Fly II, The Blob to name a few. Like I have already said, if you have seen the green mile but haven’t seen Shawshank, then you have to watch it, and vice versa.
So, anyway….now I’ve tried to tell you how good it is I will tell you a little bit about the film itself!
It’s 1946, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a quiet and reserved banker, has been convicted of murdering his wife and her lover due to jealousy. He is sentenced to two life sentences to be served one after the other. He is sent to Shawshank State Prison, a medium security prison with a lot of in mates! From his first night in his cell, he knows that his life in the prison isn’t going to be easy, but being the quiet type that he is, he keeps himself to himself, trying to keep himself out of trouble. He then meets and forms a friendship with another inmate, Red (Morgan Freeman), an older, wiser prisoner who did something bad in his early years and lives to regret it, however, after 20 years of being in prison and being rejected the right to walk a free man after serving his sentence, he doesn’t think he is ever going to get out of prison. The two of them begin to form a friendship.
Andy soon finds his feet in the prison and asks Red to smuggle him in a small rock hammer as Red is the man who can get things. We don’t get to see what he does with the rock hammer for at least another hour, so I’m not going to tell you yet! Andy soon starts to realise that he has to stick up for himself in the prison, he has to bribe people and be on their side to make his life easier. One day, while working out, he over hears one of the guards talking about a £30, 000 lump sum of money that he doesn’t want to have to pay tax on. Of course, Andy being a banker knows his way around the system and approaches the guard. Whilst the threat of being thrown of the top of a building is looming over Andy he tells the guard of a way to keep his money, but not pay tax, but he will only tell him if the guard gets a load of beer for him and the other dozen prisoners on the work scheme the next day. Of course, his fellow inmates love him for this and he is looked upon as the hero. This isn’t then end of it though, he soon starts doing tax returns for the guards and sets up a library after looking for funds for over 6 years. He is a savoir, a hero, but he pays for it all the way through his sentence. He often spends long periods of times in the hole for taking the guards trust to far!
Andy soon finds out that one of the prisoners, sent from another prison knows the person that actually killed his wife and lover and approaches the Prison warden (Bob Gunton) about the situation who isn’t interested. Andy want’s his break though and insists on getting it, for this he gets sent down to the hole for another month. While he is in there, the warden has the prisoner who can be a witness to Andy’s innocence killed, so Andy doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Cut a bit of the story out and skip a few important parts and we soon find out that Andy has escaped from the prison, nobody knows how, but it soon becomes apparent, and again, the other prisoners look upon him as their hero, nobody more than Red.
I’m not going to tell you how he escaped, do you really want me to ruin the whole story for you!? There’s just one problem at this point. Andy has had to leave his best friend Red behind in prison, but they have made a pact that when and if Red does get out, that Red has to find his way to an old oak tree and under a stone, there will be a package for him. 40 years into his sentence, Red gets freed, he doesn’t know what to do with himself in the outside world, he needs to go back to prison and looks for various way’s to do it. The only thing stopping him is the promise he made to Andy to find the oak tree and the stuff that is buried there. He finds it and finds a letter from Andy with some money asking him to make his way to a foreign country to help him with his boat business.
I’m not going to give away the end, and although I am supposed to be a man (say that to my girlfriend and she’ll laugh in your face!) it is a real tear jerker and a really moving ending to a great story.
This truly is the best drama based film I have ever seen. It relies on the characters and the viewer building a strong bond with each other and really getting to know and feel for one another. It also relies on you putting yourself in the characters positions and understanding them but if you can do this you will be drawn into the story and feeling a sense of ‘wow’ when you have finished watching the film.
There isn’t really a soundtrack that I noticed anyway, maybe I was to engrossed in the story, there is a lot of narrating from a couple of the actors and this is what really pulls you into the film. Special effects are not really there either, it’s just pure drama.
I really can’t give this film enough praise, put it this way, I normally don’t like dramas as I find them too slow, but I loved this, so if you’re a drama lover, I don’t know what your going to think of it! It’;s worthy of an inch of shelf space in anyone’s film collection. Made in 1994 it can now be found for a fiver, like I found it, however, you might have to do some searching for it.
Damn good film that I would recommend to all of you reading this. Watch it asap!
The best film of all time?……maybe.