The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Shawshank Redemption (R) In 1946, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a soft-spoken New England banker, is convicted of murder and shipped off to Shawshank State Prison in Maine, a maximum-security fortress packed to the gills with thieves, rapists, and murderers. The movie begins as a postwar Midnight Express, but it doesn't take long to reveal its true, feel-good colors. It's Midnight Express Goes Gump. Shouldering a laconic-good-guy, neo- Gary Cooper role, Robbins never quite makes emotional contact with the audience. Morgan Freeman, on the other hand, does wonders with the role of Red, Andy's 20-year prison buddy. B- (241, Sept. 23) --OG