At least so we're told, because I have yet to find a single person capable of spelling their own name correctly six times out of ten who actually managed to sit through this travesty.
Nothing under God's cold, uncaring skies could possibly redeem The Shawshank Redemption. Director Frank Darabont should have quit as soon as he realised that the original novella was penned - some might say regurgitated - by that prize sow Stephen King. Instead, to his everlasting regret (and mine), Darabont went ahead with this hideous abortion of a film.
This sappy, sentimental sponge mocks the meat it feeds on, offering up the barely comprehensible plight of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) to tug at the heartstrings of America's mindless majority. Hope is filtered through the dreary brutality of Shawshank Prison like the great American Dream is spoon-fed to its half-starved drones - of course Andy can escape, and of course every pasty-faced, dull-eyed Gap cashier can become a Hollywood starlet.
Redemption is a movie aimed at people who find it hard to think for themselves, notably English teachers and other failed specimens of the human race. The good guys and the bad guys are clearly defined from the beginning, every stereotype firmly in place; the symbolism is painfully obvious, the dialogue cringingly quotable and the 'surprise ending' telegraphed.
The sheer blandness of this tear-jerking hag-fest made me feel as though I was choking on clotted buttermilk. Do we honestly need an explanatory voice-over? Well smear me with lanolin so I can fit in with my muttonous brethren.
In conclusion: