Film Dunce is a weekly series in which one of our writers finally succumbs to the lure of a movie that has long been a big part of our culture that they have never seen. Seen through fresh eyes, we evaluate, enjoy and sometimes get bored by these titans of mental real estate.
"You haven't seen The Shawshank Redemption? But it's on TNT all the time!"
Sorry, friends, lovers, relatives, and strangers on the bus -- I spent most of my conscious life avoiding truncated TV edits of good movies. As a result, I never worshiped The Shawshank Redemption a film with a legion of followers only challenged by Christianity and it only took me 16 years to get around to watching it, and only really as an assignment for a glamorous indie culture website desperate to know what I thought of a movie that allowed Morgan Freeman to coast for the rest of his career. Also, I really wanted to annoy my roommates by insisting that Andy Dufresne was actually guilty of the crime that put him in Shawshank ("Dufresne did that shit!").
There's a lot to like about The Shawshank Redemption. It's never boring and the direction and cinematography are solid. The cast is mostly likable, and when they aren't they're played by Clancy Brown, which can make up for a lot of things. Tim Robbins proves a brilliant casting choice as Dufresne, who totally did that shit. His subdued, detached performance should make us question whether or not he's innocent, but for some reason the film never doubts him. Still, it's hard not to appreciate the irony that the guy who seems most like a serial killer didn't actually murder his wife.
Part of Frank Darabont's humanitarian work in directing watchable Stephen King adaptations, The Shawshank Redemption is the kind of film that you can tell was adapted from the novel. For some reason, Darabont didn't bother to jettison Red's narration, which is not only unnecessary but often unintentionally hilarious, especially when it describes what's happening onscreen. However, Morgan Freeman's voice is friendly and comforting, making it hard not to want him to read you a restaurant menu or describe Ikea assembly manuals.
The rest of the love for the movie results from audience manipulation, executed beautifully -- in a Doctor Doom evil scheme kind of way. The scene where the Warden Norton has Tommy killed for (quite conveniently) having information that could clear Dufresne pays off when we find out the big twist of the movie. We love twists, and we love twists that give the villains their comeuppance even more. As much as I liked the movie and liked to see Dufresne and Red regain their freedom, the feel-good tidiness of it all felt almost Capraesque even though there's nothing Capraesque about staging a prison break and exacting the most elaborate form of revenge. Maybe I'm blackhearted and evil. Then again, I like Pixar movies. So, humanity confirmed.
As Red embraced Dufresne at the beach and the credits rolled I affected a faux-Morgan Freeman: "...and that time I spent with Dufresne was the best summer of my life." After Shawshank it seemed like Frank Darabont attempted to recapture the film's spirit with another feel-good Stephen King prison movie (The Green Mile) and a feel-good McCarthyism movie (The Majestic) to mixed results. Thank the gods for these films, because it made him turn to a much more satisfying genre: feel-bad movies. I'd suffer dozens of Shawshank Redemptions if it meant more movies like The Mist.
by Danny Djeljosevic
