"The Shawshank Redemption" starts off with the familiar brutality of a prison movie. Convicted in the late 1940s for the murder of his wife and her lover, banker Tim Robbins is thrown into the slammer (the Shawshank penitentiary in Maine) for two consecutive life sentences.
Seasoned inmate Morgan Freeman—the narrator in this story—watches as the soft-spoken, vulnerable prisoner undergoes the inevitable gang rape. Prison, Freeman tells the audience in that inimitably authoritative voice, "is no fairy tale world."
In this case, he's dead wrong. " Shawshank, " based on Stephen King's novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," is a complete fairy tale, a sentimental yarn full of the darndest twists and turns since Frank Capra rolled his cameras. Cinematographer Roger Deakins's images are burnished with that "long time ago" golden glow, the inmates are—ultimately—a bunch of cute pushovers, and the worst thing about prison (give or take an initiation rape or three) is the boredom. …show more content…
The institution is run by warden Bob Gunton, a cliched sociopathic despot who likes beating prisoners to death (to make a point) but will not abide religious blasphemy. Gunton is enthusiastically supported by sadistic guard Clancy Brown, who enjoys a regular round of assault and battery himself.
But it's clear from the start that Robbins, despite the hardships, is emotionally protected by his own innocence. He charms everyone and, eventually, parlays his business skills into a useful commodity. By the end, these grim authoritarians and jailbirds are eating out of his hand. In fact, Robbins's effect on everyone is so cheesily messianic, they should have called this "Forrest Gump Goes to
Seasoned inmate Morgan Freeman—the narrator in this story—watches as the soft-spoken, vulnerable prisoner undergoes the inevitable gang rape. Prison, Freeman tells the audience in that inimitably authoritative voice, "is no fairy tale world."
In this case, he's dead wrong. " Shawshank, " based on Stephen King's novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," is a complete fairy tale, a sentimental yarn full of the darndest twists and turns since Frank Capra rolled his cameras. Cinematographer Roger Deakins's images are burnished with that "long time ago" golden glow, the inmates are—ultimately—a bunch of cute pushovers, and the worst thing about prison (give or take an initiation rape or three) is the boredom. …show more content…
The institution is run by warden Bob Gunton, a cliched sociopathic despot who likes beating prisoners to death (to make a point) but will not abide religious blasphemy. Gunton is enthusiastically supported by sadistic guard Clancy Brown, who enjoys a regular round of assault and battery himself.
But it's clear from the start that Robbins, despite the hardships, is emotionally protected by his own innocence. He charms everyone and, eventually, parlays his business skills into a useful commodity. By the end, these grim authoritarians and jailbirds are eating out of his hand. In fact, Robbins's effect on everyone is so cheesily messianic, they should have called this "Forrest Gump Goes to