Why The Shawshank Redemption is Overrated

(SPOILERS)

The Shawshank Redemption is an incredibly overrated movie.  Before I watched it, all I heard about the film were glowing reviews.  It was constantly on top of the imdb list of the greatest films of all time.  In my freshman year high school study hall, the classroom had a full-sized movie theater poster serving as a shrine to its supposed greatness.  When I finally got around to seeing the film, however, I was left disappointed.  I gave the film a second chance though, seeing it again a few months later, seeing if my negative first impression was simply a case of the mood I was in, and once again I couldn’t enjoy the film nearly as much as other people seemed to.  I would often tell people about my dislike for the film, and every time I did so, I would be met with disbelief that anyone could hate the film.  Recently, I decided to try and explain why I had these negative feelings about the film, and rewatched the movie for a third time, this time taking care to analyze the film and take notes describing what exactly I felt were the problems with the film.  In this post, I will try to present the case for my dislike of the film, not with the intention of convincing other people that the film isn’t great, but to simply explain how it is possible to not like the film.

To get started, I will say that The Shawshank Redemption is not an awful film.  This isn’t a poorly made film with more crude humor than storyline.  One of the positives of the film lies in the imagery.  The shot of all the prisoners in the prison yard looking up to the heavens as music plays is an amazing shot, one of the most memorable shots I’ve ever seen.  It’s perfectly expressive of everything going on in that point, and works on every level.  Another great shot is after Andy’s first night in Shawshank, when the prisoners are all moving out of the cell block in unison.  The colors are great, the visuals display the soulless, hopeless nature of the prison, and it plays beautifully.  However, shots like these are few and far between in the film.  It’s torturous to go from expressive shots such as these, displaying emotionally poignant visuals, to the more frequent bland shots in the film which are done with convenience in mind, instead of artistic expression.  Going from the prisoners leaving the cellblocks to a bland shot in the cafeteria is like going from Picasso to a Garfield comic.

Another major issue that really ruins the film for me is something that most people hold dear to them and identify the film with, and that is the narration by Morgan Freeman.  I know that Morgan Freeman could provide comforting narration to a documentary about dog-fighting rings, and his vocal majesty is not of any concern.  The main concern I have is that the vast majority of the narration is unnecessary and detracts from the film.

I have admittedly strong concerns about narration.  I stopped watching Easy A five minutes into the film because the narration was driving me crazy (what is the point of narration when they are having a character saying exactly what the narration is saying?).  I may have only half-hated Sophie’s Choice if it didn’t have so much awful, pointless narration, although the holocaustploitation storyline was fairly awful.  On the other end of the spectrum, I absolutely love the narration in Scorsese’s Casino and Goodfellas.  Scorsese does narration correctly.  If the audience can infer something without being told it by a narrator, or if it’s something that really doesn’t influence anything about the film, it doesn’t need to be narrated.  If, however, you are packing in enough information to fill an encyclopedia on the social workings of the mob, you are allowed to include voiceover.  But, it is important to realize that the narration in Casino dies down in places where the focus is on the personal relationships rather than how a casino is run.

For much of The Shawshank Redemption, we are forced to pay attention to the narration, rather than the visuals.  It’s a shame, and made me imagine if The Lord of the Rings trilogy used narration, and didn’t give the audience an opportunity to admire the beautiful shots.  There are shots, such as Andy sitting on the roof happily admiring everyone enjoying beer while everything is bathed in the orange glow of the sun, where the emotional impact is obvious.  Instead of taking in the shot and letting it impact us with any form of subtlety, we are forced to listen to what is basically a book on tape.  I’m not bashing books on tape, but nobody should be paying attention to a book on tape when there are beautiful sights to be seen for only a few seconds.  In another example, where Andy is jumped by the sisters (I’ll get to that name later) for the first time, the classic narration line of how Red wished he could say Andy fought the good fight and won is heard.  While this is one of the better lines in the film, I don’t believe it is nearly as poignant as it could have been had we just been shown a shot of the sisters beating Andy up.  The voiceover takes away a serious edge from the film, which leads me to another concern.

Partly due to the soothing voice of Morgan Freeman, partly due to questionable casting, and partly due to them just not wanting to scare people, Shawshank just doesn’t seem like that scary of a place.  Sure, there is some terror in the soul-crushing monotony of it all, and yes it could be seen as just a film about middle-aged men who are being tied down by society, but why do we have to exclude any real terror from the prison?  Maybe I’ve been desensitized by the portrayal of prison in other shows, such as Oz, but when I watch Shawshank I really don’t see the place as all that scary.

Let’s start with the character of Red.  Morgan Freeman gives a great performance, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking he was miscast.  Because of the generally pleasant nature of Morgan Freeman, Red comes off more as a stereotypical simpleminded black character who is kind enough to help the white people out (Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance).  I know it’s hard to make a character that isn’t a stereotype in some way, but if you’re using a stereotype in this movie, I would have rather had him be the badass black guy who helps out white people (Samuel L. Jackson in Die Hard With a Vengeance).  I mean, can you honestly believe that Morgan Freeman’s character murdered someone when he was younger?  Maybe if you’re racist.  But imagine someone like Forrest Whitaker in the role, playing a hardened prisoner who can be likable but still with a great edge.  It would change Red’s character from some random guy who is stuck in prison to someone we could believe was a prisoner.

Next in line for the characters that make Shawshank seem like not that bad of a place are the sisters.  Going along with how it isn’t scary, can they not think of anything less silly than the sisters?  The leader, Bogs, is a ginger who isn’t particularly intimidating.  He has crazy eyes, but I still think I could take him in a fight.  Compare this to J.K. Simmons in Oz, who is known now for being the bald guy in the Farmer's Insurance commercials where they are teaching funny situations to agents.  In Oz, Simmons was intimidating both in his manner and his physicality, and actually seemed like a real person with a backstory.  That is someone who I would be scared about raping me.  Also, making Bogs intimidating would have made it much more impactful when Captain Hadley cripples Bogs, and Bogs tries crawling away crying but can’t escape.

As for the rest of the sisters, they are middle-aged men whose only interests are raping Andy and not having any lines in the film.  Honestly, they are as compelling characters as the ones Vince Vaughn chides in Anchorman for not saying anything to the Channel 4 news team.  Also, is it not just incredibly comical how they are all ready to jump Andy when he walks out of the movie?  Were the sisters so confident that Andy was going to not stay for the whole movie that they were willing to just plant themselves outside and wait?  Just one of many situations where the scenarios sacrifice any sense of realism to try and build a dramatic situation.

For the rest of the Shawshank prisoners, nobody does anything intimidating except for at the beginning when all the news prisoners are being walked into the prison and everyone is yelling (I’m excluding the Brooks going crazy, because that was meant to be sad rather than scary).  This makes all the prisoners seem like regular people (they all claim to be innocent), instead of people needing to be punished.  This would be a fine angle to use in the film, except they really don’t run with it at all.  Red tells Andy to give up all hope, but we don’t see the mental torment of that in any situation outside of Brooks being released and killing himself.  I don’t see any of the other characters as down-trodden, constricted, or oppressed.  They’re barely faces, and even when they are seen I don’t believe that they’re going through a torturous ordeal.  And for the record, when I say they’re barely faces, I don’t mean that they have become part of a faceless mass that speaks to the risk of losing your personality, I mean that they were simply background actors that served as fill-in props.

All this makes the prison’s transition to a more suitable place (done primarily by them building a library) less emotional, since the prisoners aren’t making a big transition.  If the film were to portray true terrors inside Shawshank, and then slowly transform the prison into a place where humanity could again exist, it would be impressive, but they instead transform it from a place full of slightly pessimistic people without a place to read or listen to country music to a place full of slightly optimistic people who can listen to country music and enjoy laughing from time to time.

The real villains of the film end up being the guards (really just the head guard, Captain Byron Hadley) and Warden Samuel Norton.  The issue with these characters, predictable, is that they are incredibly flat and their lack of character takes away from their cruelty.  Captain Hadley’s character development includes him senselessly beating people and being upset because he has to pay taxes.  Nothing else.  He is basically the villainous frat boy jock from a National Lampoon film.  Yes, it is scary how he beats the man to death early in the film, but his character goes nowhere from there.

Warden Norton has a little bit more character, in the sense that he loves the bible and loves exploiting his prisoners for economic gains.  Also, he wears glasses and is a jerk.  Other than that, what more can be said?  I can understand Captain Hadley being a flat character, since he is just a henchman.  It isn’t great that he is so flat, but it’s understandable.  But to have both the henchman and the main villain to be incredibly flat, just helps ruin the film.  Having such a simplistic antagonist going against the protagonist means that the struggle will end up being simple, uninteresting, and unoriginal.

Perhaps the worst character, however, is Andy Dufresne.  Partly due to Tim Robbins’ acting (Kristen Stewart has more facial expressions), partly due to his simplistic dialogue that prevents him from ever having a conversation that seems real, and largely due to simplistic, unrealistic actions that seem manipulative, Andy Dufresne is just an awful character.  When I mean unrealistic actions, I mean scenes such as when Andy is on the roof and asks Captain Hadley if he trusts his wife.  Why would Andy possibly start off with saying that?  In real life, people would say something like “Excuse me sir, but I can help you not have to pay taxes” instead of saying something insulting to a maniac they saw beat a man to death for crying.  The scene sets itself up for the dramatic edge-of-the-roof standoff, instead of considering what would be realistic or believable, and this forced drama takes away from the ultimate impact of the scene.

Additionally, consider why Andy is in prison to start with.  His wife cheats on him with a golf pro (who hasn’t that happened to, honestly?) and he shuts down emotionally and acts like a sad version of Abed from Community.  Why should the audience care about someone who has the emotional depth of a brick wall?  Why can’t we see him before he became incredibly uninteresting?  At least give us more of a backstory than that he was a banker.  I found myself not caring at all about Andy, even when he was put in the hole.  He is bland, and gives us no reason to care for him.

Something odd that I noticed in the film the third time I watched was that Andy really isn’t the focal point of much of the film.  Due in part to his character having no emotions or opinions and partly due to Red’s narration drawing most of the viewer’s attention, I feel that Andy doesn’t have more than 3 memorable moments in the film.  I am reminded of Schindler’s List, where the character of Schindler often takes a backseat to Spielberg portraying the horrors of the holocaust.  However, Schindler is still a dynamic character who overcomes a realistically horrific situation, and in the end inspires the audience.  I can’t say any of those redeeming qualities apply to Andy.  He spends most of the movie being talked about without doing much of anything at all.  It isn’t until the end of the film that his character seems to assert itself onto the story, and by then I’ve already lost interest.

For all the reasons above, I just didn’t feel inspired by the end of the film for Andy.  When Andy escapes and starts his new life, finally overcoming the underwhelming oppression of the unintimidating prison and simplistically shallow Warden, I was happy for him but I didn’t have the same feeling of inspiration that I get when seeing characters from other films finally break through.  I’ve watched episodes of Futurama with better character development and conflicts that created more inspiring moments (Futurama is a pretty good show though).  For me, it was too little too late.  The film lost the opportunities to make me feel for Andy, and the better conclusion for me was Red’s ending.

Despite an unrealistic final parole hearing (watch Family Guy’s parody of it, quite funny), Red becomes a character I can sympathize with when he tries adjusting to life outside of prison.  Helped out by his character actually having depth (as opposed to Andy), and also by a well-shot scene where Red finds the money under the tree (free of pesky narrationg, for the record), this is a bright spot in the film but also a sad reminder that the movie could have been much better.  People can try to look past all the negatives I’ve brought up and say this film is about being free or overcoming  societal constraints, but even if that’s the case, the film didn’t display those themes well enough at all.  Intentions for the film might have been great, but they aren’t executed nearly well enough and can’t make up for the numerous other flaws.

If you enjoyed watching The Shawshank Redemption, I don’t want to take that away from you.  If you disagree with me and think that Morgan Freeman was cast perfectly for the part of Red, that’s fine.  But if you think that all the characters are well-developed and more than just stereotypes, if you think many of the scenarios aren’t incredibly forced, and if you think that most of the shots aren’t bland in comparison to the handful of well-done shots, then you need to watch the film and pay attention.  Again, I don’t think this film was awful, but instead I feel that the potential was there to make a film that could inspire me and be a cinematic gem.  The film has enough positives to make it a favorite for many, but watch it again and try to imagine what it could have been.