Shawshank Redemption

I like movies with positive endings, how much ever pain might have been shown in the movie, a good ending keeps the hope – that there is good around you… And this movie is about the hope, hope that a even a convict can have living in prison for 40 years (read Red a.k.a Morgan Freeman). I speak more about Red than Andy Dufresne, coz Andy is more like the ‘fiction’ and Red is more like the truth. Andy is the one whose story is more heartfelt and when he achieves freedom - and the way he achieves freedom though not completely convincing - the audience naturally reacts well to the movie. Red has a no frill character and has to beg for his freedom everytime until he is finally granted, after 40 years.

The movie travels 19 years – the term for which Andy is in prison and narrates the various hardships a prisioner goes thru, for example, homosexual inmates, strict wardens (jailors)… Apart from adding a lot of strength to the movie, the narration by Morgan Freeman which happens in the bits and pieces thru out the movie gives an emotional touch and helps you feel for these convicts. It gives us a viewpoint which is not something profound but which each one of us goes thru in our lives, in different settings – here a convict who lives in the prison for more than 50 years (almost all his life) does not know the outside world nor has the capability to survive in the changing world – as its said in the movie, the convict gets institutionalized. Like many of us who are averse to change and would not react well if our whole environment was altered, is the same a convict goes thru when he has to leave the prison and re-enter the world… And here we are not talking about a change where one migrates to a different country but a change where everything around you is different – one of the scenes Red explains that he is so used to asking for permission to take a piss that he cannot pee, unless he asks someone (his superiors) for permission.

Andy, the protagonist of the movie is a smart banker wrongly (which we realise towards the end of the movie – though there is no attempt to morally prove that he is guilty, it is understood) convicted for his wife’s murder. The movie revolves around him, Red and a bunch of other fellas… As the movie progresses slowly showing various happenings in the prison, one waits for a twist until the end and the director does give you that twist, about 90-100 mins into the movie. As I mentioned earlier, one should not question some of it because it gives us a happy ending.

As for me, I do not rate this movie as No.1 of all times, but is surely on the top of my list - more so because its an excellent story but for me a No.1 movie should have more than that - excellent acting, direction (not that this movie did not, but the story did not require all of it)