Film Review: Reviewed By Alan Jones; 5 out of 5

This deeply moving version of Stephen King's story Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption from first-time director Frank Darabont is one of the best adaptations of the novelist's work. Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a Maine banker sent to Shawshank State Prison for murdering his wife and her lover. He is regularly brutalised by the inmates and the penal system in general, but his existence improves when he befriends fellow lifer and prison fixer Red, played by Morgan Freeman. Under Darabont's inspired direction, Robbins and Freeman both rise to the challenge of portraying world-weary dignity against the odds, while the severity of the prison system is underlined in the poignant performance of James Whitmore as a veteran convict trying to make it on parole, but ill-equipped to do so.

Plot Summary

Prison drama, based on a story by Stephen King, starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Maine 1946: sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife and her lover, mild-mannered banker Andy Dufresne tries to adapt to the brutalities of prison life. Over the years, Dufresne's friendship with long-term inmate "Red" and the discovery that his financial expertise is suddenly in big demand make his ordeal easier to bear.