Why is shawshank redemption a good movie

Enough time passes, you depend on them. In addition to this, the character arc of Brooks is a perfect illustration of what institutionalization is; after spending his whole life in prison, where all his relationships and beliefs were built, there was no way he could fit into the outside world once he was released. Everything he ever knew had been inside the walls of Shawshank, and taking Shawshank away from him would be taking his freedom away.

Your point of view towards life necessarily depends on your surroundings, and human beings have a tendency to be easily institutionalized. He has the ability to create a piece that, ironically, by setting the story in tight prison walls, manages to open up so many doors about our current society.

This should definitely be on your must watch list! What if America had a Royal Family? The Fantasy Sports Boom. Beauty After Quarantine. Cancel reply. Your email address will not be published. He was nominated but did not win…. His only Oscar was for Million Dollar Baby. This film should have won several Oscars. The jail house played an amazing role in the movie because it made you feel like the movie was happening in an older era and that the roles back then were STRICT!!!

The Shawshank Redemption was well played by the actors and had a storyline that an audience at any age could enjoy. The voice over that Morgan Freeman does makes the finishing role of the movie amazing.

The role applied a lot in this movie and it really did stand out. Adult Written by Newfie10 September 26, Top of The Heap! This is one of my top 3 movies of all time. It should have walked away with tons of awards.

Unfortunately, it wasn't promoted for some reason can't remember why. Robbins is spectacular, as is Freeman, and deserved the Oscar for his portrayal. This movie actually made me take interest in opera! Helped me decide.

Had useful details. Adult Written by Thomasgeorge November 9, Written by Anonymous April 7, Best Movie Ever It is official that this is my favorite movie of all time. Nothing compares. First off, you probably didn't know but I love movies based off of Stephen King books. Three of my favorite movies this included are based off of his books. Either way, this is an amazing movie and a must-see. Adult Written by moviefans September 6, Top-notch film "The Shawshank Redemption" is more than just a prison movie, because it has a very amazing storyline or plot that deals with finding hope, freedom, and solace.

Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are terrific in their roles, as well as the rest of the cast. A top notch film that's for older teens and adults to watch. Adult Written by Vaitidas96 September 17, I suggest this movie for those who have hope.

Adult Written by langeylang April 9, Is it really redemption? The Shawshank Redemption does not display true redemption. All characters are corrupted in their own ways by the end of the film except Red and Brooks, and the amount of profanity, violence, and obscene sexual insinuations was not worth this so called "redeeming ending". I would not recommend this movie for kids or anyone who has difficulty watching continual violence. Gang rape, violence, fraud, and a dismal portrayal or Christian people is what I saw in this movie, and found it disappointing overall.

Parent Written by Julie K. March 29, Violence is present The violence includes shootings beatings hanging. The language includes f s d a and more.

Parent Written by Apersonthatdoes February 22, Adult Written by Stephanie L October 25, Great movie!! Great movie! It did have quite a bit of swearing.. But that was the only thing that I felt justified the higher rating. And even with the language, I believe it was still a great movie! Lots of plot twists and turns throughout that are just the right amount of scary. We really enjoyed it. This title contains: Language. Adult Written by EpicReviews August 31, Adult Written by Frances72 May 27, A very good film, with a fantastic ending.

Very good film. I am not sure about the age. My daughter is almost 15, while she loved the film, there were scenes that she was very uncomfortable with, even disturbed by it..

Robbins is great as Andy and he ages and grows well - whether or not he is believable in his calm approach to the punishment he takes is another matter, but I was caught up in the film enough to get past that. Freeman may not be the Irish guy from the book hence the name Red but he is excellent as the father figure - even if he appears to age very slowly in comparison to Andy. The chemistry between the two is the key and it really works.

Of course having a support cast that includes a great number of fine support actors probably helped. People like Gunton, Sadler, Bellows and others may not always be great but here they fit the bill. The surprise performance for me was from Clancy Brown - not the most subtle of actors Highlander is his other famous role but he is very good here indeed, albeit with little actual character depth. As director Darabont has done very well, framing some great shots that crane shot as the bus arrives for the first time as well as a shot that has become almost iconic.

He is helped by a score that fits the sweeping sense of hope that the film brings. For all it's faults it is a popular and moving story that seems to do the trick for the majority of those that see it. It is no wonder that the film has such a high rating, it is quite literally breathtaking. What can I say that hasn't said before? Not much, it's the story, the acting, the premise, but most of all, this movie is about how it makes you feel.

Sometimes you watch a film, and can't remember it days later, this film loves with you, once you've seen it, you don't forget. The ultimate story of friendship, of hope, and of life, and overcoming adversity. I understand why so many class this as the best film of all time, it isn't mine, but I get it. If you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it for some time, you need to watch it, it's amazing.

Well I guess I'm a little late to the party as far as writing down a review for this picture. I've seen it a couple of times, but that was before I became a regular contributor to the IMDb. When I first discovered this site a few years ago, "The Godfather" was in the Number 1 spot, and since then the films have traded places for first and second, with Shawshank maintaining the top spot most of the time.

That puzzled me a bit until I watched it again tonight, and I've come away from the picture with a new found appreciation. I may have to reconsider that list, an infrequent exercise but one I don't mind doing every now and then as situations warrant. Overall, the film is darn near perfect. Every set-up, every nuance has some importance that eventually converges to symbolize Andy's quest for escape and personal redemption.

Remember Brooks feeding Jake for the first time and eventually setting him free when he receives his own pardon? How about Andy playing Mozart into the prison yard while settling back with a smile of contentment on his face. The story transcends one man's confinement for a crime he didn't commit, and focuses instead on his reaction to circumstances beyond his control. Paul Newman showed us a different way to react to those kinds of conditions in 's "Cool Hand Luke", but his method was self destructive.

Andy Dufresne Tim Robbins never loses his ability to keep his eye on the prize, even if it takes him a couple of decades to do so. But even more so, you have here the story of Ellis Boyd Redding Morgan Freeman , a convict who sees Andy as a person, and over time, an inspiration to himself and the rest of the prisoners who call him friend. From Andy, he comes to understand that even as a prisoner, a man can live life on his own terms if he can keep his mind uncluttered by thoughts of desperation and hopelessness.

Not bad for a convict who started out believing that 'hope can drive a man insane'. I really can't recommend this picture highly enough, both for it's masterful story telling and it's technical execution. The actors, even those portraying the most minor characters were seemingly born for their roles.

They deliver a seamless performance that's virtually unmatched by most modern films, in a picture that hits all the right notes with an inspiring message of discipline and perseverance. Two imprisoned men Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency. Is this the greatest film of all time? IMDb would have you believe so.

Despite being a box office flop that barely recouped its budget , the film received multiple award nominations and outstanding reviews from critics for its acting, story, and realism. And it deserves this praise that seems to be growing each year. Now twenty years old, the film has not aged a day, and instead seems to be getting better.

This is Tim Robbins' best role, and a fine performance from the always wonderful Morgan Freeman. A story of banker Andy Dufresne Tim Robbins getting falsely convicted of murder and sent to the hellish Shawshank prison, the movie is beyond amazing. Red gets Andy a poster of Rita Hayworth. Over the next twenty years, Andy experiences all the horrors that one would expect in jail: beatings by the guards, rapes by other inmates, and so on.

But he never gives up hope. When we think of horror, we think of spooky horror, but "The Shawshank Redemption" is a different kind: personal horror. Pure genius. I can only hope that in the coming years, this movie is recognized as what it is: a masterpiece. I can't believe that it won no Oscars! Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free. While he is there he is quiet for a while, but eventually he forms a friendship with black Irish marketeer Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding Oscar and Golden Globe nominated Morgan Freeman, and the character was originally a white red haired Irishman , retains hope and gains respect of fellow inmates.

After a while, he gets to do a lot of personal work for the Warden sorting documents, founding a new library and improving a lot of other things, with his law and mathematical skills. One day though, he seems strange towards Red when he asks him to find a specific tree somewhere he knows, and the next morning, he has escaped scraping through the soft wall with a chisel. Andy and Red do eventually find each other again in the happy emotional ending, well, many moments in the film are emotional.

It was a flop in the cinemas, and since release to video and DVD it has become a favourite with many film goers. Boy, this is a very popular film, and one of the reasons Liberals love it so much - in addition to the fact that it's an interesting story and well-acted - is the anti- Christian bias in here, which is very strong. You see, the villain, as in almost all modern-day prison films, is the warden. And, they go out of their way to show you that the despised hate-filled warden is a Bible Believer, of course.

It's repeated and demonstrated several times as the warden quotes Scripture. And our hero Tim Robbins carves out the middle the Bible to use as a place to hide a tool for him to escape. Heaven forbid, the Book would be used for him to actually read! It's no coincidence since this is written by famous author and Christian-basher Stephen King. Amid the bigotry is an interesting story with two likable lead characters the other being Morgan Freeman, whose narration in the film is superb and a very satisfying ending.

This movie is so manipulative it's laughable In the world of film-making, criminals are the real "victims "of our horrible society. The captain of the corrections officers, the massive-jawed Clancy Brown, is quick with his baton, agitato, so to speak.

The warden, Bob Gunton, is a corrupt dictator. Morgan Freeman, serving a life sentence, becomes a friend of Robbins. Robbins has a lot in the upper story and goes about doing good for the penitentiary and for the inmates, despite the beatings, attempted rapes, and unjust punishment.

Under his management the library becomes a beacon for all prison libraries. Many brutal years pass before Robbins, an amateur geologist, tunnels through the prison wall, hauling a bundle of ill-gotten pelf, crawls into a five-hundred yard long sewer pipe filled with excreta, and splashes through a river to freedom and a tiny coastal village in Mexico, Zijuataneco.

I drove there about the time this escape takes place and it really WAS a cheap, peaceful, fishing town with an irregular water supply. Now it's a metropolis. After forty years of imprisonment, Freeman is finally paroled. He joins his friend Robbins in Mexico, where they pursue an honest living as simple fishermen and become lovers for life.

It's a long movie but a gripping one. Movies about prisons are difficult to make. The surroundings are hardly epic, the wardrobe drab, the inmates participate in what the sociologist Erving Goffman called "the small rewards" system common to all total institutions -- gifts and trades of items like cigarettes and harmonicas. The inmates have humble jobs, nothing exciting about working in a laundry.

No women. Threats and occasional fist fights but no open warfare. And here there's not even the suspense of watching men prepare for an escape.

How do you fold these conditions together and come up with a story? The people who produced "The Shawshank Redemption" have managed to pull it off, and without directorial display -- no fireworks, no instant cutting, no screechy metallic noise on the sound track, no razzle dazzle whatever, just classic movie making. He's an exceptional actor, and though we may see him now mostly in the role of mentor, his early performances as a heavy shouldn't be ignored.

God, he was one charming and terrifying pimp in "Street Smart. It also requires him to be saintly, alas. There's nothing wrong with him. He's a genius, doing everybody's tax returns. He's more sinned against than sinning. Cool Hand Luke at least was reckless and expedient and brought the storm down upon himself.

And Luke's guards would have made mincemeat out of Robbins. Robbins' prison is a kind of fantasy land in which he can at will commandeer an office, lock the doors, and play a record of an opera over all the loudspeakers.

It's also a pipe dream to believe that all of the inmates would stop what they're doing and stare in wonder at the loudspeakers broadcasting two ladies singing in Italian. Slim Whitman, maybe. But Joan Sutherland? They would have booed. Nor would inmates show the kind of solidarity on display here, once Robbins pulls them together.

The coolest presentation of self in an institution like this is utter indifference, except for some offense against the honor of one's self or one's gang. It's a cold-hearted place in which practically nobody applauds when someone else succeeds. However, put all the fantasy aside and accept it for what it is, a fictional tale of men who pay dearly for misdeeds and ultimately save themselves and undermine the foundation of corrupt society.

Not heroically, just by sheer persistence. Tweekums 23 April In Andy Dufresne is jailed for life for the murder of his wife and her lover. Red has already served ten years and is the guy to see if you want something smuggled into the prison. Andy asks for two things; a small rock hammer and Rita Hayworth!

Soon after Red provides him with one rock hammer and a large poster featuring Rita Hayworth. Life in Shawshank is not easy; the guards are brutal and some of the inmates are worse. Andy survives though and things get better when he is able to help the meanest of the guards avoid paying tax on an inheritance; soon he is acting as accountant to the whole prison and helping the corrupt warden squirrel away large sums of money earned by prison labour.

He is able to use this position to improve the life of prisoners too; a few beers for a work party, improvements to the prison library and education for some inmates. All the time Andy professes his innocence then one day after he has spent almost twenty years behind bars a young man comes to Shawshank; the man tells the story of how a cellmate at a previous prison claimed to have murdered a man and the woman he was with leaving her banker husband to take the blame.

This film, based on a Stephen King short story, is rightfully considered a classic. There are no scenes that felt unnecessary from start to finish the story moves at a good pace.

There is also the joy of seeing that Andy will not break and his greatest triumph coming just as it looks as if he has finally reached breaking point. The cast does a great job; Tim Robbins is great as Andy and the always reliable Morgan Freeman is on top form as Red; theirs is one of the great portrayals of a screen friendship. It isn't just the likable characters who are well acted though; Bob Gunton is subtly unpleasant as the hypocritical Warden; quoting scripture one minute profiteering, and much worse, the next; Clancy Brown is also great as the truly unpleasant Captain Hadley; the senior guard who brutalises the inmates.

After the suffering inside the finale chapter where we see Andy's escape and revenge makes this a feel-good movie despite what we've seen before. This is definitely a must see film.

Superbly played film set in , a bright young New England banker is convicted of the slayings of his spouse and her lover and sentenced to life at a strict State Prison.