I have watched an astronomically unimaginable number of movies during my short time in this world so far. Almost one for each day since I was around fifteen. I've learned new things, had great times, understood how different people think and most importantly evolved the way I think myself. Without cinema, I probably wouldn't have been half the man I am today. Cinema is not just an aspect of my life; its the other way around. Cinema is the fog through which I glimpse life.
I'm not gonna tell you what The Shawshank Redemption is about since this isn't a review. If you've seen the movie, you can probably relate to every single word you're about to read. If not, I ask you to imagine what it would feel like to watch the most astronomically wonderful movie ever and then watch Shawshank; trust me, there's no way on earth you'd be disappointed.
It's a really old movie and I am clearly late on watching this one. I have been fortunate enough to have had the time to watch every single 'Greatest Movie Ever'. I honestly don't even know why I hadn't watched Shawshank yet; probably one of those ironically inexplicable things.
This snap above from Google is corroboration of this movie's excellence. It has a remarkably high critic rating and also a very remarkable approval rate of 96% which is one per cent more than Avengers: Infinity War. Not a significant number of films have such outstanding reviews by critics and public alike.
The movie measures all aspects of story telling very accurately. The dialogue is phenomenal, the music is subtle yet significant to the screenplay and the pace is magically clocked; they managed to tell a a story two and a half hours long and made it feel like four hours, thats remarkable since it means that four hours worth of wonderful writing was squeezed into the original time frame of the film without making it look crammed up or rushed. Moreover, the climax is when stuff gets unbelievably marvelous. Very few stories can produce climaxes that are equally bad-ass, emotional, unexpected, nail-biting and full of closure for the viewer. Shawshank does it as if it were a piece of cake.
Its one of those stories that you really can't guess the end to. I am a superhero frenzy but those movies end almost alike. Avengers: Infinity War was an exception but then again much like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - I, its a two part story. Its very certain that the yet Untitled Avengers 4 will end with the Avengers having won. The same can't be said about Shawshank. The movie is filled with so many distinct tones and emotions that it leaves us guessing right until the credits roll. The story binds you onto itself and makes you fall in love with the protagonist(s); so much so that the outcome of the movie gives you never-felt-before extreme emotions.
The plot is clever but not difficult to follow. I don't think I will ever watch this movie again despite it being so great because it laid out all details so well that I probably didn't miss anything. And there's no point in watching a movie again if I'm not going to get anything new out of it because watching it to get the exact same stuff out of it might make me register it in my brain as boring and I don't want to lock this great movie away in my 'Boring Stuff' folder.
So, thats pretty much it. I really urge all my readers to watch this movie if they already haven't. It has the potential to change their lives and the way they look at the world.
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