Brad's All-Time Fave Films: #6

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

It would be an understatement to say that this film is the epitome of a 'triumph of the will' movie. The film centers around an everyday white-collar business man named Andy Dufresne (expertly played by Tim Robbins) who goes to jail for killing his wife and her lover. Despite receiving a particularly long sentence (two life sentences if memory serves), Dufresne is determined to get free.

Of course, there is no doubt that everyone feels that way when they first enter the clink, but after so long, most become institutionalized, so dependent on the structure and the system that prison provides, that they can no longer function with all of the freedoms they are given back upon their release (as well as the harshness of trying to survive being an ex-con). In fact, we see this in the character Brooks, who cannot cope with the free world once he is released.

But somehow Andy remains resolute in his task. His fellow inmate Red (played by Morgan Freeman) manages to secure him a toy pick axe and he goes about chipping away at the prison walls, removing just little bits every night. I don't know how many years Andy ended up spending in prison, plotting and making his escape, but he never wavered in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles (like months in pitch-black isolated confinement).

At the end of the film, as Andy stands with arms raised in the rain, victorious, we don't really know whether or not he regrets his crimes, but we do know that, at least to himself, he has been redeemed.