 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|
|
|
 email this review to a friend
'The Shawshank Redemption' is a movie about hope, and the will to survive, two things that can make a man endure the most terrible of hardships, and cling stubbornly to even the slightest promise of escape from his torment. In this case, hope is what drives Andy Dufresne (Robbins), a mild-mannered banker accused of murdering his wife and her lover, and sentenced to life in the unforgiving Shawshank prison, run by the corrupt Sam Norton (Bob Gunton), and staffed by cruel guards, including the especially sadistic Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown), who enjoys beating inmates, and meting out excessive punishments for the slightest of infractions. Dufresne catches the attention of Red (Freeman), another lifer, who runs a black market operation, and can get even the rarest of items for the right price. He is perplexed by Andy, who suffers abuse and every kind of customary indignity, yet maintains his calm and gentle persona, which masks a ruthless determination to break out, by digging a hole in his cell wall, cleverly concealed by posters of cinema starlets like Rita Hayworth. Dufresne becomes the warden's personal accountant, managing his graft money, knowing all of his dirty little secrets. Dufresne strikes up a friendship with Red, and earns the trust of the guards, who grant him special privileges, in exchange for his tax services. He takes over the library after its former caretaker, Brooks (a wonderful James Whitmore) gets paroled, and struggles to adjust to life on the outside. His story is moving and superbly effective, illustrative of how one can get used to certain routines, and find it hard to function without them. Brooks is a nobody in the real world; in Shawshank, he was well-respected. This weighs heavily on him, as well. The highly intelligent Dufresne acts as a mentor and tutor to a new inmate, Tommy (Gil Bellows), who wants to get his high school diploma, but thinks he is too stupid to do it, and Andy helps him with this. Tommy tells Andy that his last stint in the slammer put him next to a guy who confessed to the crime Andy was convicted for, which empowers him to request an appeal, which Norton rejects, for obvious reasons. This could well be the finest prison drama ever made. Andy is a strong, inspiring character, played perfectly by Robbins, who makes him a man of few words, never telling us what he is really thinking, his facial expressions, gestures, and actions being interpreted by those around him, and also by us, as we try to understand this thoroughly enigmatic character. His innocence seems obvious, but his lack of emotion makes it clear that he could very well be a cold-blooded murderer, but then he is full of surprises. Freeman, as Red, gives the kind of performance only Freeman could give, as the wise and sagely veteran who understands how things work in Shawshank, but has lost touch with the outside world, and has grown accustomed to having his parole rejected, to the point where, in one of the film's best scenes, he states bluntly that rehabilitation is virtually meaningless to him, and that he has spent more than 40 years behind bars, his youth far behind him, he is now a harmless old man with no idea of what to do with himself if he would get paroled. His fate might be quite similar to Brooks's. The relationship between Robbins and Freeman is central, captured superbly in exchanges where Andy reveals his plans, the new life and identity he has waiting for him, while Red simply listens in disbelief. Gunton is terrific as the despicable warden, who uses religion to disguise his true nature as a crook, to him, maybe, a crook among crooks, the much lesser of several evils. Brown is menacing as Hadley, whose capability for great brutality masks a childish fear of being the subject of similar treatment. The prison itself is a character, filmed from every angle, outside and inside, to spectacular effect, imposing yet vulnerable, those trapped within it are convinced it cannot be breached, and no one has entertained thoughts of escape. Except Andy. At its core, this is a fantastic, deeply philosophical story about the nature of the human spirit, and how hope is something that cannot be taken from you, even when everything else is. This is what Andy so eloquently and succinctly tells his fellow inmates. And he practices what he preaches. email this review to a friend
Comment on this Review:
 Subscribe to MatchFlick Movie Reviews through RSS |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
RSS | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | About MatchFlick® | Press | Contact Us | FAQs
Partnership and Advertising Opportunities | Movie Database | Merchandise ©2004-2008 MatchFlick®. All rights reserved. ©MOVIE IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTED AND THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS |