A superb prison film. It was a box-office flop at the time of its release, despite numerous Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture.) Video and numerous cable runs have given this film the public respect it so richly deserves. Both Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are superb in this tale of a friendship between two inmates at Shawshank Prison over the course of twenty years. Accolades also go to the supporting cast (Clancy Brown, Bob Gunton, James Whitmore and William Sadler), screnwriter/director Frank Darabont, and Stephen King, who wrote the novella the pic was based on. It is frequently run on TBS or TNT, and even the edited version shown there is worth catching.

Definitely one of the best movies I've ever seen, uplifting and heartbreaking all at the same time. Much better than The Green Mile, or any other Stephen King movie I've ever seen.

I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this film!!!

I started to watch this film knowing I'd have to stop about a fourth of the way into it, in order to get sleep before going to work. I ended up unable to stop watching, and was VERY tired at work the next day. (Technically the same day.)
I don't normally like prison films, but this is not only the best one I've seen (to date, I still haven't seen 'The Green Mile'), but it's one of the best films of any genre I've seen. I can't imagine what could be edited out for broadcast on commercial tv without ruining the story.

Brilliant film.

Wonderful film

One of my all-time favorites. I can watch it over and over and over and not get tired of it. There's so much going on here, it can serve as a case study in how to write fiction. It's not surprising that author and international screenwriting teacher Syd Field often cites it in The Screenwriter's Problem Solver.

I thought I had found a nit, but as I was posting it, I realized it wasn't a nit.

When Andy is getting ready to escape his cell, we see him take off his prison blues, and he's wearing a suit under it (obviously the Warden's -- see the scene in his office immediately before). However, when he escapes into the river, he's wearing his blues.

I was about to post this as a nit before I realized what happened. He took off the suit (and shoes) and put them in the plastic bag. He then put his blues back on, and went out barefoot, so the suit and shoes would be nice when he went to the banks. If you look closely, I think you can see the suit in the bag when he's climbing down the walls.

Well done.

The shot after Andy climbs out of the pipe towards the end, rips off his shirt, and stands in the middle of the water, arms in the air, looking up into the pouring rain with the music swelling...
gives me shivers! It's the most satisfying scene in the movie.

SPOILER ALERT
In the scene where Tommy (Gil Bellows) is shot and murdered, the TV version only has two shots fired. However, once he falls, we see four bullet holes in him.
END SPOILER ALERT

After the director yelled "Cut," Clancy Brown fired two more because he really hates Ally McBeal.

Check out this review of Shawshank from the Warden at Prison Flicks.com. It's extremely positive, even though he nitpicks a few things.

Good review. I disagree, however, with just about all his criticisms of the film, both major and minor.

And Scott, if you're looking for a nit, there's the really easy one I spotted when I first saw it in the theater no one has mentioned here: After Andy escapes the prison and is standing in the rain, Red states in narration that Andy crawled 500 yards, "just shy of half a mile." A mile is 5,280 feet, so half of that would be 2,640 feet. 500 yards is 1,500 feet, which is more than "just shy" of 2,640.

Well, Andy was the number-cruncher and voracious reader, not Red. The line is in the original novella... I think maybe it was a way for King to further demonstrate Red's lack of education... or perhaps a way to evoke a sense of wonder and show how legends are born... like the Tailor and the Giant.

You're saying this wasn't a mistake on King's part? I find this hard to believe, as it seemed to be an obvious mistake. That moment of the film was an extremely important one, possibly the most important, and to put that line in to reinforce a character trait that late in the film, and in that clumsy a manner, would only distract from the more important aspects of that scene. And as far as being the number-cruncher, Red was part of Andy's staff at tax time.

Good review. I disagree, however, with just about all his criticisms of the film, both major and minor.

And Scott, if you're looking for a nit, there's the really easy one I spotted when I first saw it in the theater no one has mentioned here: After Andy escapes the prison and is standing in the rain, Red states in narration that Andy crawled 500 yards, "just shy of half a mile." A mile is 5,280 feet, so half of that would be 2,640 feet. 500 yards is 1,500 feet, which is more than "just shy" of 2,640.
Yeah, I noticed that one too when I saw it last week.

For the first time.

Finally.

You're saying this wasn't a mistake on King's part? I find this hard to believe, as it seemed to be an obvious mistake.

It might not be. In his book On Writing A Memoir of the Craft He says that it's better to show a reader what a charcter is like than to simply tell them. You could write a line that says a character is uneducated, or you could have him say uneducated things and let the reader figure it out.

It's a good book. I recomend it. It's insightful and funny. I especially love how he rips on bad books like Murray Leinster's Asteroid Miners. "It wasn't very good. Except that's too kind. It was awful."

You're saying this wasn't a mistake on King's part? - Luigi

I didn't say that. I said I think maybe King did this purposely, which doesn't make it factually true or untrue.


That moment of the film was an extremely important one, possibly the most important, and to put that line in to reinforce a character trait that late in the film, and in that clumsy a manner, would only distract from the more important aspects of that scene. - Luigi

Yes, the line was so important that the author missed it... his editor... possibly many of his readers (as it was never corrected in subsequent editions as mistakes often are), Darabont, Freeman, the producers etc. Just how distracting and clumsy do you really think this line was, do you think?

And I didn't say it was necessarily to reinforce a character trait (in that it wasn't designed to purposely remind us of the character's limitations), but to stay true to the character.

I also said it might possibly be to give Red's telling of the story a bit more flair (as the father does in Big Fish)... taking an event and making it seem more extraordinary than it already was.

I'm saying that if his intent with that line was to reinforce a character trait of Red's (which sounds identical to me with "being true to the character"), it was a very clumsy attempt to do so.

If he wanted to give the story more flair by making it seem more extraordinary than it was, it would've made more sense for him to say that it was half a mile, without giving a contradictory number like "500 yards." He'd have either said "900 yards...that's just shy of half a mile," or just have said "just shy of half a mile," and left it at that. If he's trying to make the tale seem bigger than life, then by saying "500 yards" and "half a mile," he's shooting himself in the foot.

...it was a very clumsy attempt to do so. - Luigi

Clumsy to you, perhaps. But as I already argued, LOTS of people have had access to King's novella and Darabont's script before the line was ever recorded, and no one else seemed to have thought it so clumsy that it detracted from the scene.

It's a matter of perspective, I guess.

I'm sure that plenty of pilots find fault with much of Die Hard 2... I'm sure lots of doctors find E.R. to be non-representative of the actual emergency room experience... and I'm sure plenty of forensic investigators scoff at much of C.S.I.... that doesn't make it any more distracting or less fun to the rest of us.

When Red gets Andy his rock hammer, he passes it by way of Brooks. This apparently costs Red a pack of cigarettes. Throughout the rest of the movie, Red and Andy and other prisoners have no trouble meeting, often with considerable privacy, in areas where contraband could be passed without attracting attention. Why did Red get the tool to Andy via a method that costs him extra?

Darth Sarcasm: Clumsy to you, perhaps. But as I already argued, LOTS of people have had access to King's novella and Darabont's script before the line was ever recorded, and no one else seemed to have thought it so clumsy that it detracted from the scene.
Luigi Novi: People miss things. But if I had read the novella or script, I would've had the same reaction. This wasn't something I scanned for. It jumped out at me the very first time I saw the movie.

Darth Sarcasm: I'm sure that plenty of pilots find fault with much of Die Hard 2... I'm sure lots of doctors find E.R. to be non-representative of the actual emergency room experience... and I'm sure plenty of forensic investigators scoff at much of C.S.I....
Luigi Novi: That's technical knowledge esoteric to a specific field, not general knowledge like distances. Most people don't have expertise in flight, emergency medicine or forensic crime scene analysis. But saying 500 yards is just shy of half a mile is an obvious mistake that I noticed.

How did everyone know what happened to Brooks anyway? His letter made it sound like he was just leaving.

Newspapers?

How could they justify arresting Capt. Hadley? Yes, he had killed a few inmates in his time, but they didn't really have any evidence of that, other than Andy's letter, and that alone certainly would not have been enough to secure a conviction. They didn't even have Andy to testify. I can't imagine they could've sustained any charges against Hadley based on what they had.

Hadley killed Tommy Williams. There would be no reason for him to do that unless he was implicated in the graft and money laundering at Shawshank. So Andy's financial evidence would have taken him down too.

No, the official story, which Andy gave nothing to contradict, was that Tommy Williams was trying to escape, and Hadley shot him to prevent him from doing so. Andy's letter alone would not have been enough to call this story into doubt, and he had no hard evidence to prove it wrong.

I'm not suggesting that Hadley would be accused of murdering Tommy. I'm asserting that there is nothing in this movie to suggest that Hadley would commit murder just because the Warden said so (or that the Warden would bring in an otherwise largely law-abiding corrections officer to kill for him). Thus, the only reason we can believe that Hadley killed Tommy is if Hadley was in on the financial improprieties at Shawshank. Given the postulate that Hadley was knowingly involved in the Warden's graft and embezzlement, Andy's financial evidence should have been enough to at least get him indicted---after all, Andy did all the prison's accounting, official and unofficial, and had been doing Hadley's taxes for over a decade.

NANJAO - This film was released to theaters by Columbia Pictures, who handled all of Castle Rock's films until 2000 or so. Now, Castle Rock is owned by Time Warner. As a result, the film is now handled by Warner Bros. Who have eliminated any connection to Columbia in current TV runs. Namely, the Columbia lady at the start was replaced by the Warner Bros. intro, and the Columbia logo at the end has been replaced with Warner's "WB" logo.

11 things you didn't know about this film.

Warning: Contains a possibly NSFW video at the bottom.

The above discussion about Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown) shooting Tommy Williams (Gil Bellows) is interesting because no such event took place in the original novella. In fact, by the time Tommy came to Shawshank in 1963, in the novella, Hadley was no longer there (he had suffered a heart attack in the mid-50's and had taken an early retirement. Hadley was also gone by the time Warden Sam Norton (played by Bob Gunton in the movie) took over running Shawshank. So the two of them were never working there together at the same time.

What happened in the novella is that Tommy tells Andy about his former cellmate, Elwood Blatch, and how Blatch told him he had killed Andy's wife and her lover in a robbery (the crime Andy was convicted for). Andy goes to Warden Norton and tells him Tommy's story. Norton, not wanting to lose his pet accountant (Norton is corrupt in the novella, but never stoops to murder), has Andy locked in solitary and has Tommy transferred to light security facility on one condition, Tommy never speaks of Elwood Blatch again. Tommy, who has a wife and son, agree, because the facility has a furlough program, meaning he can spend weekends with his family.

Also, in the novella, Norton is not Warden when Andy arrives in 1948. He doesn't show up until around 1959 or 1960. Perhaps the movie shortening Andy's stay in Shawshank to 19 years (he was there for 27 in the novella, had something to do with this change.

Shawshank is headed back to theaters on September 22, 24 and 25, in a series of 25th anniversary screenings, in conjunction with TCM Big Screen Classics and Fathom Events. Go to the Fathom Events website for more. Again, I'm there, dude. Especially since I blew off the screening at this year's TCM Festival.

Stephen King himself approves of this movie, he says it's one of the best adaptations of his work.

And I 100% agree.