Critique of Shawshank Redemption

Critique of “The Shawshank Redemption”

The Shawshank Redemption is a great film depicting the journey of Andy Dufresne, as played by Tim Robbins, getting convicted of murdering his wife and getting sent to jail. The only thing: he didn’t do it. This is one of my most favored movies to watch, it also happens to be a good short story by Stephen King.

One of the main things that rally grabbed my attention was the casting. I feel that Morgan Freeman as Red was a great choice. His acting is always superb in any movie, and he really shines in Shawshank. Then of course there is Tim Robbins as Andy, and he seemed like a perfect fit. Andy is a soft spoken banker and Tim portrayed him well. Some of the more interesting characters are the guards, the actors who played them were the kind that you would love to hate, especially Captain Byron T. Hadley played by Clancy Brown.

The plot is also another thing to consider. Andy starts off as a new fish in a big ocean. He has to learn all of the tricks of the trade with the help of some “good” inmates like Red and Heywood. Not long after is he just a regular prisoner, except there are tensions between him and some other homosexual inmates who attempt to rape him. He get back at them by siding with the guard and helping them do taxes, because of that the guards prevent the other inmates from touching Andy. I though that was a nice reverse of power between Andy and the bad inmates; also he has an increase of power with the guards and can get favors.

Later, Andy finds out through a new inmate, Tommy, that he knew who killed his wife and Andy goes to tell Warden Samuel Norton and he dismisses it, and instead kills Tommy to prevent the information leaking into the outside world. This is a really bad twist, how could the Warden do such a thing after Andy has been nothing but a model inmate?

Next, some camera shots were really spectacular and they really grabbed my attention. A lot of the shots that I really appreciated where the outside ones with aerial shots of the prison, like one of the opening ones where its show all of the prisoners huddling up to see the new arrival of inmates. This shows that this must be a normal thing for them and must be a sort of fun event to go to as they are making bets and having a good time. Another shot that caught my attention is when the Warden rips down