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Trey Griffin

Ms. Helveston

UWRT 1101

22 February 2017

Rhetorical Analysis

The reviewers purpose for writing this review is to educate the reader about the movie

The Shawshank Redemption and to share his opinion that it is a movie worth seeing. He wants to

make the point that he thinks the movie is not like your basic movie, theres much more to it. I

think he makes this point very clear when he says that, It is deeper than most films (Ebert).

After reading the review I think that the reviewer hopes that the reader will think about the

generic prison movie and then go see the movie and see for themselves that the film brings in

their attention and connects with them which is what makes it different than any other prison

film.

The reviewers main claim about The Shawshank Redemption is that, it is deeper than

most films; about continuity in a lifetime, based on friendship and hope. (Ebert). Here it is clear

the point hes trying to make. Another claim he makes is that, The Shawshank Redemption

creates a warm hold on our feelings because it makes us feel like were a member of the family.

He then goes on to say that, The key to the films structure is that its not about its hero, but

about our relationship with him. (Ebert). He backs up these claims by saying that the films

narrator, a prisoner serving a life sentence named Red, uses his calm voice to include the viewer

into the story of men who have formed a continuity behind bars. The main character, Andy

Dufresne, is a banker who is convicted of murder. However, the point of view of the film is from

the prison population but more particularly, from his friend and the narrator, Red. The reviewer
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thinks that if the point of view was from Andy or that if Andy was the narrator then it would have

been just a conventional and typical film. However, since its not, we sympathize with Andy

and wonder about him as a result. To me this backs up his main claims. The reviewer also said

that there wasnt much going for the movie and thats why it wasnt popular at first. It didnt

have typical prison drama, the actors werent big stars, it was long, and there wasnt much

action he said. He says it wasnt until word of mouth got around that it became extremely

popular. He claims that this happened because, maybe it plays more like a spiritual experience

than a movie. (Ebert). This to me backs up his first claim and shows why it wasnt popular at

first, because it wasnt a conventional movie, but became popular once the public realized that it

brought the viewer into the story and connected with them.

A smaller claim that he makes is that the director took a risk with this film. He says, The

film is deliberate, considered, and as thoughtful as Freemans narration. (Ebert). He goes on to

say that most Hollywood directors assume that audiences have short attention spans and must be

assaulted with fresh novelties. To me he is saying that these audiences are very simple minded

and action oriented, and not looking for a deep story. He says those fresh novelty films are

slower to sit through than Shawshank because the film absorbs us and takes away the

awareness that we are watching a film.

The reviewers audience would be anybody thats a teen or older who is looking for a

well thought out film with a good story to it. I say this because he does use some larger words in

the review and the movie is R rated so he knows that younger kids are not going to be reading

this review. He uses words like deliberate, considered, and thoughtful to describe the movie.

His hope is that these more powerful words help persuade the reader to agree with him. I think

his powerful and well thought out words do a good job in getting his main points across.
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Works Cited

Ebert, Robert. The Shawshank Redemption. Roger Ebert, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-

movie-the-shawshank-redemption-1994. Accessed 1 Feb. 2017.