The Shawshank Redemption
This film is one of my all-time favourites. I have
seen it many times and I never tire of it. The definition of the title is that Shawshank
is the name of the prison and redemption means a state of being freed from the
power of evil. There are several characters, but the two main ones are on the
front cover. The story is narrated by a long-standing inmate named Red (Morgan
Freeman) who is serving a life sentence in Shawshank State Penitentiary and he
tells the story of Andy Dufresne’s (Tim Robbins) arrival and time in the
prison. In 1947 banker Andy was given two consecutive life sentences for the
murder of his wife and lover yet his innocent version of events falls on deaf
ears. Initially Andy becomes a victim of brutality then as the years roll by
his knowledge of financial matters become useful to the corrupt warden and his
guards.
The part that
Red plays is that he smuggles prohibited items into the prison for a fee and he
fills Andy’s requests for a rock hammer and polishing cloths for his hobby plus
posters for the walls in his cell. Over the years Andy and Red become good friends.
During Andy’s sentence a young convict is transferred to Shawshank and mentions
a story about a man he shared a cell with in another prison who bragged about
killing a banker’s wife and her lover.
The warden isn’t interested in this information which would free Andy who
could then potentially tell the authorities about the money laundering within Shawshank,
so he has the young man shot, making out he had tried to escape.
At one stage Andy tells Red of a place in Mexico,
Zihuatanejo, where he would like to go if he ever got out and he told Red not
to forget the name. One morning years later, Andy is missing from his cell. The
warden is so angry that he throws one of Andy’s small rock sculptures at his
latest poster and it passes straight through it detecting the tunnel that Andy
had dug over his nineteen years of confinement. The prison later discovers that
he had escaped through the sewer system into the surrounding marshes and
disappeared without trace. What they didn’t know was that Andy, whilst doing
the finances for the money laundering operation for the warden, had made a
false identity and transferred thousands of dollars into several bank accounts.
He had then posted the corrupt ledgers of money dealings pinpointing the warden
and his guards as being guilty to a local newspaper just before he escaped.
Months later Red receives a blank postcard and he remembers
the place in Mexico that his friend Andy had spoken about. It takes several
more years before Red finally gets his parole hearing which said he was no
longer a threat to society and he was released after serving more than sixty
years. Red didn’t cope with being on the ‘outside’ as he was institutionalised.
He finally goes to the tree that Andy had told him to look under for a rock
that would be out of place. Underneath it Red discovers a tin containing a
letter and money. At the end of the film you see Andy on a beautiful beach
sanding down the hull of a boat. Red walks along the beach towards Andy with a small
suitcase in his hand representing that he had hardly any belongings after
spending all that time in prison. When Andy notices him, he immediately stops
what he is doing, meets his old friend and they hug as free men.
