The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption, widely considered one of the greatest movies of all time, is a film released in 1994 that was based on a short novella written by Stephen King in 1982. The screenplay, written and directed by Frank Darabont, is a period piece, set in the 1940’s, based on a friendship between two cons serving life sentences for murder, in Shawshank State Penitentiary. Andy Dufresne, played by actor Tim Robbins, is a banker who has been convicted of killing his unfaithful wife and her lover, the golf pro at the local country club. Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, portrayed by actor Morgan Freeman, is also serving a life sentence and tells Andy, “I am the only guilty man in Shawshank”. The first scenes are set with Andy, a bourbon bottle between his legs, sitting in his car alone, watching the house of his wife’s lover. The scene, dark and eerie, let’s the viewer know without a doubt, Andy has come to kill them both. Tim Robbins’ portrayal of Andy, places anyone who has ever been hurt by love, in the car with him. Dejected and long past crying, he pulls a gun from the glove box, loads it, and stumbles out of the car, dropping the empty bourbon bottle along the way. Immediately the viewer is transferred to the courtroom where Andy, claiming his innocence, is convicted, sent to Shawshank and the …show more content…
Andy is routinely assaulted by “the Sisters”, and after helping Hadley, the main guard with a tax issue, Bogs, the leader of the sisters is severely beaten and sent to another prism. Andy begins managing the prison’s financial records and is eventually exploited by Warden Norton, a sadistically ruthless man, to launder money received from bribes for prison labor. In 1965, Warden Norton, has a young Tommy killed in order to prevent him from testifying to Andy’s