The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

A friend suggested me to see this movie about a year ago, but me! I don’t watch movies from past century. I just never occurred to me to see this movie even after many many reviews on public Instagram and Reddit threads.

Finally just yesterday I watched this movie and I was moved. It just touched my soul.

The main character of this movie is ‘Andy Dufresne’, a Banker who was convicted life sentence for murder of his wife and her lover. he was thereafter transferred to Shawshank Prison.

There he met co-character of the movie named ‘Red’ who was also known to locate thing time to time. Andy met Red requested a rock hammer about 6 inches long to carve stones. It was to too small such that it can take 600 years to dig a way out of that prison so Red did not suspected anything and got him a rock hammer.

The initial phase was very bad for him because he was being bullied by gang called ‘Sisters’ but he was very patient. After a few moths he grabbed an opportunity to solve a tax problem for the officer and instead he asked bottle of beer for his colleagues. this way he made many friends in the prison. He seemed very quiet and smart.

“I am innocent, just like everyone else here”

There was also a prison release meeting for ‘Red’ every 10 year where he was asked questions like “do you feel you are resurrected?” and he gave the same answer every time, with no real intension and he got rejected every time.

In one scene of the movie I heard I heard Andy Dufresne saying

“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of the things and no good thing ever dies”

In the movie there was also a librarian named brooks who served 50 years in prison and then he was released and he committed suicide because he loved those walls. after this incident I heard Red talking…

“These walls are funny, first you hate them, then you used to them. enough time passes and you get so depended on them, this is called institutionalised.”

As I already mentioned that Andy was a banker, everyone in the prison (including the Warden) used to file tax from him. Warden was so much corrupted that Andy had to do all of his dirty work for him and taking this opportunity he created a fake person out of thin air and linked everything to him.

After 20 years one day he managed to break prison and everyone was so shocked then police found out that he made a tunnel through the walls.

Red was surprised that with the help of six inches long rock hammer it could take him more than 600 years to dig that tunnel and Andy did it less than 20.

in one of his conversation he also mentioned how he escaped saying…

“Andy crawled through 500 yard of shit and came out clean in the other end”

Hope

The movie was very inspiring and there are many many takeaways from it, but What I loved the most is that never give up, Keep your hopes up. I know that taking about hope is the last thing a person can do specially when he is serving a life sentence. but wow! Andy wow! you did it, you can out millionaire in the end. for this red said that…

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright”

Resurrection

After Andy was gone Red completed his 40 years of life sentence and release meeting was held and he was asked “Do you feel that you are resurrected?” in replied in a mind blowing way saying

“Resurrection? it’s just a shitty word to me, if you are I asking me about I regret what I did? then yes, I thought about it every single day. I wish I could go back to my younger self and tell him something, but I can’t do that, that young man is long gone. this old man is all left here.”

Conclusion

We all are fighting our own battle, nobody knows what is going inside a man’s head. but the main thing is you. just keep trying man! this is all you can do! Don’t let something steal the best out of you!