I Can't think of a title for my review on The Shawshank Redemption!

If there's any film in recent history that has become known as One of The Great Films of All Time, it is Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption. While it did garner an Academy Award nomination, in its time, very few people had heard of or seen it. Then, one guy saw it, thought it was the best movie ever, and one of his friends saw it, and thought the same thing, and then... its just about everybody's favorite movie. Roger Ebert even changed his 3.5 star rating for it to a 4. Kinda funny how that all works, isn't it?

I don't know what it is... I thought most people liked to have their own personal favorite movie so that they could enjoy the feeling of individuality, but it just seems like everyone's favorite movie is "The Shawshank Redemption". My dad saw it, told me it was his favorite movie, and then I saw it, and thought the same thing (until "Pulp Fiction"). I talked to a friend of mine several years later, and he told me the same. It's ranked # 3 on the imdb.com user ratings. Crazy stuff.

Perhaps it's the whole "triumph of the human spirit" thing. Andy Dufresne, even though he is a convicted murderer serving two life sentences in prison (in a case where we would have convicted him), happens to be a very intelligent and likable guy. We come to like him more as we see this. Later in the movie (spoiler alert!), it is revealed that he might very well be innocent, and yet the warden of the prison cuts off all possibilities for the man to be given a re-trial, because Mr. Warden, being his greedy self, would rather have Andy around to give him a bigger profit in the prison. Thus, we want to see Andy get the hell out of there, and our emotions are all pent up waiting for him to escape (end spoiler! sorry, that was a long one).

Yeah. I guess it's that. Plus the big smile that spreads across our faces once the true wisdom (and God-given luck) of Andy is revealed in the movie's final quarter. This is one hell of a movie. Robbins, even as much as I can't stand the guy nowadays, is one damn good actor, and he creates the convicted murderer that we all fall in love with so much. And Morgan Freeman, one of my favorite actors, proves himself very worthy once again as Red, a truly guilty convicted murderer who is more mature than anyone else in the prison, having stepped outside the personality of the stupid kid that he once was.

This movie is bound to move people throughout. It charms you with its wonderful sense of humor, and then devastates with dramatic realism. Thus, the audience is caught up in the story, and we are bound to have it be one of our favorite movies by the time the credit rolls. Frank Darabont knew exactly what he was doing, glorifying the human spirit in its goodness and looking down upon it at its worst. Genius.

Rating: A+