The Shawshank Redemption | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

Darabont cut right to the heart of a flock of human birds trapped in a giant cage, under the watch of a corrupt warden and terrifyingly sinister guard. It was serious, certain, and made you laugh. Freeman's legend has never shined brighter.

If this is a feel-good movie -- and by the end it certainly is -- then at least it challenges us to dig deep for those good feelings when everything inside those mausoleum walls is unrelievedly harsh and grey.

The Shawshank Redemption is both resigned and inspirational, grittily realistic and vaguely surreal, matter-of-fact and operatic. Somehow, these opposites are combined into a remarkably smooth and lyrical composition.

The sad thing is that The Shawshank Redemption, a so-so film, would have made a terrific little movie. A pacier project would have given us less time to notice sentimentalities.

Next to Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption ranks as the strongest, purest film ever made from a novel or novella by Stephen King, a monster film where the horrors are frighteningly human.