An outline of the : Shawshank Redemption - Movie Review Example

Shawshank Redemption Introduction “Shawshank Redemption” is a movie that got limited release in 1994 before a second release in 1995. The movie was nominated for ‘Academy Awards’. However, although it did not win any award, this enabled the movie to fare well in television viewings and video sales. The movie story revolves around Andy Defense, a banker who spends almost twenty years in prison for killing his wife and her lover. He meets and befriends Ellis Boyd Redding, a fellow inmate, and the lives of the two get intertwined to the time they leave prison to start life again together in Mexico.

The themes in the movie include corruption, conspiracy and fraud among others. This paper will discuss corruption the main theme in this movie.Corruption Corruption and lack of integrity is the main theme of this movie. This is depicted in several scenes within the story with Andy appearing as the main protagonist. This theme starts unfolding on the day he was repairing the roof. He overheard Byron Hadley, the brutal chief warden complaining about taxes for a forthcoming inheritance. Having been a banker, Andy offers to help Hadley by exploiting loopholes in the law to avoid the taxes.

When the two finally managed to sort this out, they became good friends. Avoiding taxes is illegal and a corrupt deed that can easily land one in jail. Andy is latter assigned duties in the prison library by Warden Samuel Norton. However, the motive is not to favor him. On realizing his potential on financial matters, Norton’s aim is to exploit Andy’s expertise to solicit for money from the government, apparently for the library and most of which ends in the pockets of the prison guards.

Other prison guards from neighboring prisons also seek Andy’s help for the same. Andy on his part is also willing to engage in this rot to continue receiving preferential treatment in the prison. Soon after, Warden Norton takes his corrupt deeds higher when he starts hiring out prison labor for public works jobs for which he gets kickbacks and profits. To cover his tracks, he launders the money that he accumulates with the help of Andy using an alias ‘Randall Stevens’. At some point, Andy gets to learn that Tommy, a new inmate who he helped get a Diploma while in prison for robbery, committed the crime, for which he was in jail.

On informing Norton about it, Tommy is killed by the prison guards on the pretext of planning an escape from prison. This was meant to eliminate the new evidence that could save Andy from his jail term, as his continued stay would benefit Norton even further in his corrupt deals. This movie has a theme similar to the one in the book, Out of Order, by Max Boot. There is also the article in the online newsletter, Fairly Civil, entitled ‘Rot in the Big House — Prison Corruption, Part One’, by Tom Diaz.

Both are publications highlighting corruption in the American prisons. In real life, cases of shameless corruption in prisons were reported in Mexico in 2010. A news item in the ‘New York Times’ that appeared on July 26, 2010, titled, ‘Mexican Officials Say Prisoners Acted as Hit Men’, documented how prisoners in a jail North of Mexico were involved in night time murder-for-hire escapades using prison guards’ vehicles and weapons.ConclusionThe above indicates the extents to which corruption had permeated in Shawshank prison and the manner in which the wardens used the prisoners shamelessly to make ill-gotten money.

On their part, the prisoners were willing to become accomplices to get preferential treatment necessary for survival in the harsh prison environment. The corruption web was so deep such that killing Tommy to get him out of the way did not mean much to the guards. It is a depiction of some of the dirty things that get done by corrupt government officials while in positions of power. Works citeMark Kermode. The Shawshank Redemption. London: British Film Institute, 2003