No Redemption for Andy Dufresne

The Shawshank Redemption is one of those films that sits comfortably in the upper echelons of the movie talkie colour picture. It's become shorthand for the greatest film ever made—or GOAT, as the kids insist on calling it.

Based on the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, writing under his non-horror alias Richard Bachman...

Actually, no. He wasn't. This one was published under his own name in the collection Different Seasons. See? I'm capable of admitting when I'm wrong. Shame the film isn't.

It was a relatively obscure but much-loved story until director Frank Darabont brought it to the big screen with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

After the murder of his wife, Andy Dufresne is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary. Naturally, he insists he didn't do it, despite a mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise. Think The Fugitive, only without Harrison Ford sprinting through culverts or Tommy Lee Jones chasing after him.

Prison life is a million miles from the comfortable middle-class existence Andy had enjoyed before he definitely, probably, maybe didn't murder his wife.

Prison is tough.

But not in a shiv up the arse and don't drop the soap sort of way. It's more emotionally bruising than physically terrifying. The inmates don't believe he's innocent, the guards are cruel, and isolation slowly gnaws away at his psyche.

Kind of.

For a little while, anyway.

Then he befriends Red, played by Morgan Freeman, whose character is, for all intents and purposes, Morgan Freeman being Morgan Freeman—or at least the version audiences would come to expect. Calm. Wise. Measured. The sort of man who could read the ingredients off a cereal box and somehow make it sound like ancient philosophy. Hell, Morgan Freeman could read out that description of Morgan Freeman and make it sound Shakespearean.

The Shawshank Redemption didn't invent that persona, but it certainly cemented it, paving the way for similar roles in films such as Se7en, Kiss the Girls, and Deep Impact.

At this point I know you're all thinking. Fucking hell, Paul. You're just being contrarian to be cool. Just because it's quieter than another film about prison life doesn't mean it's not beautiful.

Trust me, I am not being contrarian. I did love the film when I first saw it way back when. I even kinda believed he might not have possibly killed his wife.

But. My argument is that while a good film for what it is, it's not the incredible piece of cinematic magic it is often held up as.

Does it deserve to sit alongside 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, Team America: World Police and Herbie Gets Arrested?

I don't think so.

Take a film like The Godfather. It is genuinely a masterpiece. Whether you agree with it or not. The level of craftsmanship displayed is spellbinding. From the many beautiful shots to the tense, quiet and understated drama, the performances. Every scene moves plot and character development. Though Brando's, Pacino's and Duvall's performances have been reduced to caricatures, they are still fully realised characters. And Michael Corleone's arc from trying to stay good to living up to his family obligations is powerful.

By contrast, The Shawshank Redemption is not nearly as deep as its sweeping soundtrack, dramatically deep conversations and powerfully framed themes suggest.

I am not against hope and overcoming adversity, not at all. But less interested when they are used for metaphors for "we needed a reason to explain why this guy does his own The Great Escape through the shitty pipes".

While the Corleones feel, especially Michael, like living, breathing people, Red, Andy, the nameless other prisoners and the awful Warden feel like symbols or vibes rather than three-dimensional characters.

The music takes us along, Morgan Freeman talking about fairly straightforward things like he's Gandalf manipulates us into thinking "this is deep".

When is it really?

I'd argue against that. It's like saying Twilight is a deep character study of the ramifications eternal life has on people when they meet the girl of their dreams and the loss of self when giving into base desires to bone either Taylor Lautner as Dog Boy or Robert Pattinson's Dead Boy within an inch of their life.

Crude comparison, but perfectly illustrates my argument that The Shawshank Redemption is a well-dressed TV movie disguised as a cinematic masterpiece.

Are Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman good actors? I'd argue that they are great actors. The Hudsucker Proxy is one of my favourite Coen Brothers films, largely due to Robbins. Se7en was a masterpiece and Morgan Freeman balanced out the sheer despair and futility of the world they inhabited with gravitas.

Ironic.

Tim Robbins, I'm sure, was cast because he doesn't look like a typical criminal and Morgan Freeman was cast because he looks and sounds like Morgan Freeman. The Prestige in full effect. The illusion step, not the film about the illusion step.

My issue is the mistake people make in getting caught up in its presentation, when truthfully it is by its very nature a film that is style over substance. This is often the case with a lot of potential award-winning films.

Cinema is an experience. No doubt about that. And it should transport you.

But, does The Shawshank Redemption really transport you, or is it a much simpler prison escape movie that tries to dress up its philosophy like it's Waiting for Godot?

In truth, that is often the goal of many movies. To pull the wool over our eyes and let us drift into someone else's story and forget our own. But while some movies are honest about their surface-level intellectualism and philosophy, The Shawshank Redemption is deliberately made to look and feel like one of the greats.