When Shawshank Redemption first came out, it BOMBED at the Box Office review, and pretty much went straight to VCR. But when those kids who have nothing better to do on a Saturday night decide to watch this movie, it almost immediately went through the roof. Ironic, isn’t it? A movie that sucked when it first came out, it getting over a thousand views a day, and the film slowly spread across the world like a virus. To me, I thought that the movie was great. It had a powerful combination of friendship, action, deceit, and endurance.
If I personally would try to get this movie into the Hall of Fame, there would be a number of points I would touch on. For one, the choice of actors in that movie were absolutely perfect. Tim Robbins played an awesome Andy Dufrane, and the decision for Morgan Freeman playing “Red” was absolutely superb. Even aside from the heroes, the actor that played the Warden, in my opinion, did an absolutely top-notch job, in doing the whole, “evil guy who’s supposed to be a good guy kills an inmate to keep his personal banker” thing.
Another point I would make is that the location was an extraordinary setting for the story. The use of an actual prison I think really put emphasis on the filming, and all other settings used.
The final point I could use is the excellent construction and order of the storyboard. The entire way that all the scenes were layed out, and the order that they were really made the movie what it was. Every single twist and turn in the movie made any viewer rooted to their seat more, with every passing scene.
That, is why this movie has such a good name today.
