Tim Robbins is wealthy banker "Andy Dufresne" who finds himself sentenced to life imprisonment after his wife and her lover are found murdered. The handsome "new fish" is initially the target of the "sisters" who would use him as they would like - but he fights back and gradually establishes a friendship with prison "scrounger" Morgan Freeman ("Red"). When he overhears the beastly prison guard captain bemoaning some tax problems, he, rather riskily, volunteers to help find a tax-free solution and is soon advising pretty much the whole place - including "Warden Norton" (Bob Gunton) on all things financial - some above board, some less so. The film is set over a period of over ten years, and depicts some of the most brutal aspects of prison life; but also some it's more hopeful. It deals with violence and desperation but also of bonding and lasting friendships and loyalties that long term close-confinement engender. Frank Darabont elicits the best from his three principals superbly, with added venom provided by guard captain Clancy Brown and humanity from prison librarian James Whitmore - one of the few who actually does make parole. The last half hour is up there with the best cinema has ever had to offer, and this - again on a big screen - is a must see adaptation of one of Stephen King's lesser known, but better, stories that delivers a redemption never, quite, anticipated by the prison service!