By The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to the beloved Stephen King adaptation The Shawshank Redemption.
“Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free,” read the tag line to this 1995 prison drama “classic”. Actually, that’s the job of the state parole board. Or in this case, a six-inch rock pick. Please.
The Shawshank Redemption is shit. Fact. This cinematic fiasco relies almost entirely on misplaced sentimentality. The audience end up cherishing murderers and rapists like they’re cuddly little puppies that wouldn’t harm a fly. Well, they actually would harm a fly. And a human. And probably cuddly little puppies. That’s why they’re in there in the first place.
Director Frank Darabont adapted the script from a Stephen King short story. Short story. King obviously felt that it could be told in few words, so why Darabont felt the need to torture us with well over two hours of this garbage is quite beyond me. It’s been said that Darabont still owns numerous deleted scenes from the film, but was too embarrassed to include them on the DVD. Perhaps that kind of humility should have stopped him from releasing the whole damn thing.
Redemption, as obsessive fans like to call it, justifiably failed miserably at the box office, and only found its audience later on, becoming one of the highest grossing video rentals ever. It’s this kind of posthumous recognition that bothers me the most. For instance, way back in 2007, The American Film Institute ranked this as the 72nd Greatest American Movie of all time. It wasn’t on the previous list, compiled in 1998. How can that be? The film hasn’t changed. Nothing has been added or taken away. If it wasn’t good enough in 1998, then why was it good enough in 2007?
Even worse than that though, The Shawshank Redemption consistently tops various polls proclaiming it to be the best movie ever made. It’s even become a joke now because it features so prominently whenever random people (sports stars, politicians etc) are asked what their favourite movie is. Sigh. This travesty merely confirms what I’ve always suspected: the movie going public wouldn’t know a decent film if it came up and whacked them in the face…with a six-inch rock pick.
For a far more positive reading of The Shawshank Redemption, check out Mark Kermode’s book-length appraisal of the film as published by BFI Classics and Bloomsbury. Click here for more information.
