You can hate the justice system for convicting Andy Dufresne of double murder and sentencing him to consecutive life sentences, but you can't blame it.
The opening sequence of "The Shawshank Redemption" places Andy at the scene of the crime, finds him tossing a gun into a lake and pegs him with the motive — the victims are his cheating wife and her lover.
Beyond any reasonable doubt, Andy appears guilty. The judge, noting Andy's lack of remorse, puts him away for life. Andy is shipped to prison, an innocent man slipping through the cracks of a flawed system to toil in its bowels.
"The Shawshank Redemption" is an unhurried, engulfing prison drama that tracks Andy's inner cool in the face of outer strife. Amid devastation in which some would give up, Andy puts his life together, piece by piece. As Andy puts it, he can either get busy living or get busy dying.
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The narrator is Red (Morgan Freeman), a friendly, beaten-down lifer who is continually denied parole. Red has carved out his niche as the go-to guy for outside contraband. He can get you anything, including a rock hammer and movie posters.
With one look at Andy, Red bets a hefty amount of cigarettes that he'll be the first of the newcomers to cry. Andy makes him lose that bet, then becomes his closest pal. The audience's surrogate, Red looks on with fascinated regard as Andy sets to work making lemon merengue out of lemons.
Andy operates with a quiet assurance, always in control and bearing an indefatigable positive attitude. He treats every situation as though it's playing into his hands. Andy exposes the weakness of greedy warden Norton (Bob Gunton), a Bible-thumper and a fascistic disciplinarian. Andy curries favor with Norton by using his accounting expertise to help him launder tax money.
Through subtle cleverness, Andy earns the respect of the inmates and guards alike. He parlays his skills to help those around him, in turn helping himself.
What lingers long after a viewing of "Shawshank" is Andy's calm resolve — his ability to form alliances, his shrewdness in working contacts and optimizing situations — but watch the film fresh and you'll be surprised with the overwhelming adversity he confronts.
Andy is marked from the outset by the Sisters, a band of sexual predators led by Bogs (Mark Rolston), and he's gang-raped multiple times. Hopes for exoneration arrive with young thief Tommy (Gil Bellows), who has information that could overturn Andy's conviction. Yet the vile warden, who has come to rely on Andy's presence, intervenes.
Andy is the walking embodiment of the Maya Angelou poem "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Life can rob Andy of his freedom, his physical health, even his dignity, but his resolve can't be touched. Andy makes it his business to stoke his inner fire.
A drama informed thematically by the Alexandre Dumas novel "The Count of Monte Cristo," the film is based on the Stephen King short story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption." Frank Darabont penned a sterling screen adaptation. Rob Reiner liked the script so much that he offered Darabont $2.5 million for the rights to direct, but Darabont chose to helm it himself.
Due to the seemingly tired subject matter, lack of blockbuster stars and weird title, "Shawshank" never caught much of a trade wind at the box office. It seemed that "Shawshank" might find its redemption at the Oscars, with seven nominations (including Freeman's in the best-actor category and Darabont's in the adapted-screenplay category), but the film was worked over at the awards, treated as unfairly as Red at his parole board hearings, shut out in the year of "Forrest Gump."
Home video and especially cable television were much kinder, allowing the film to find its audience. TNT is said to play the movie an average of six times a year.
Through Andy, Red finds his own redemption. Red seems to be a broken man, in danger of becoming institutionalized like Brooks (James Whitmore), the old-timer prison librarian. Through actions as much as words, Andy teaches Red that Red must cling to hope, if only for the ability to get by from one day to the next.
"Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things," Andy writes Red in a resounding letter. "And no good thing ever dies."
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
● Rated R. Starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Directed by Frank Darabont. 142 minutes. Available on DVD. For links to other reviews in the series, go online to: www.azstarnet.com/sn/review
