The stated Roger Ebert score is four stars.
The cited review describes the film as an allegory about maintaining personal worth despite everything.
The panel approves of Ebert's assessment.

Casting What-Ifs

Tom Hanks, Kevin Costner, and Tom Cruise were considered for Andy; Brad Pitt for Tommy; James Gandolfini for Boggs; Johnny Depp and Nicolas Cage were rumored; and Rob Reiner proposed Cruise and Harrison Ford.

This discussion recalls a choice from an earlier episode.

In the discussion (12)

Approx. transcript time · 01:00:36Read transcript

Tom Hanks was offered Andy but could not accept because of Forrest Gump; the panel prefers Tim Robbins because the role became inseparable from him.
Kevin Costner was offered Andy and is considered a credible alternate, although the panel thinks Robbins better preserves doubt about Andy.
Tom Cruise attended table readings but declined over the director's inexperience; the panel thinks his intensity would distort Andy.
Brad Pitt was intended for Tommy before Thelma & Louise created other opportunities; the panel thinks his presence would make Tommy disproportionately prominent.
James Gandolfini was intended for Boggs but chose True Romance instead.
Johnny Depp and Nicholas Cage are discussed as rumored Andy possibilities whose dreaminess or intensity could have fit parts of the role.
Rob Reiner offered Frank Darabont three million dollars and another financed project for the right to direct with Cruise as Andy and Harrison Ford as Red.
Jon Favreau auditioned for the fresh-fish prisoner and later called it his worst audition.
Bob Gunton's height helped him plausibly share clothes with the taller Tim Robbins for the escape plot.
Tom Cruise is suggested instead for Tommy Williams.
The hosts imagine Cruise preparing for the pipe crawl by practicing with Navy SEALs.
Favreau is reported to have used the failed audition as motivation to lose weight before Swingers.

Research covers the Ohio prison, Stephen King's rights check, the tense shoot, prison and money details, Morgan Freeman's son, the sewage prop, Alan Green, the ending, the oak tree, visitors, deleted scenes, and prerecorded narration.

In the discussion (20)

Approx. transcript time · 01:14:07Read transcript

The Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield supplied the prison location and later became a visitor destination.
Stephen King never cashed Darabont's five-thousand-dollar rights check and returned it framed with a bail-money joke.
The shoot was unusually tense because Darabont demanded long days and many takes, leading Freeman to recall repeated conflict.
The research says he threw out his arm and showed up with the sling after many takes.
Andy Dufresne's stated prison number is 37927.
Andy takes $375,000 from the warden, described as roughly $3.7 million in 2019 dollars.
An initial claim that only the grocery customer and bank clerk are women with speaking roles is challenged by recollection of a woman on the parole board.
The young Red mug shot and a fresh-fish prisoner are played by Morgan Freeman's son Alfonso.
The beach was filmed on St. Croix rather than at the story's Mexican destination.
The sewage mixture used water, chocolate syrup, and sawdust rather than actual waste.
The film is dedicated to Darabont's agent Alan Green, who died of AIDS during production.
Film producer Liz Glotzer insisted on showing the reunion; Darabont resisted it as too commercial and sentimental before the filmed version won approval.
The Buxton oak was damaged by lightning in 2011, fell in 2016, and was turned into memorabilia after removal.
The prison drew eighteen thousand visitors in 2013 and more than three million dollars into the local economy.
One deleted scene has the prisoners find Jake dead and bury Brooks's bird.
Another deleted scene has Tommy's wife visit and motivate his GED effort.
A deleted escape aftermath sends a guard through the tunnel, where the sewage smell makes him vomit as Red laughs from his cell.
Deleted post-release material shows Red having a panic attack at the grocery store.
Freeman recorded the narration before filming, and it was played during scenes on set.
Test audiences were reportedly restless during deleted post-release scenes featuring Red.

Picking Nits

The panel questions nearly every logistical step in Andy's escape, Red's search, prison life, the opera system, public funding, and the preserved Brooks carving.

In the discussion (22)

Approx. transcript time · 01:26:12Read transcript

Andy's escape depends on a precisely timed thunderstorm after he has already committed to the suit and book switch.
The panel questions how Andy knew the pipe would break with only a few strikes.
The panel asks why Andy did not enter the pipe closer to its outlet and how he knew which direction to crawl.
The poster's ability to remain attached over the tunnel and to be replaced after each visit is difficult to explain.
Crawling five hundred yards through hot sewage seems likely to cause vomiting, unconsciousness, or death.
The panel doubts one bar of soap and rain could remove the sewage smell before Andy entered banks the next morning.
Andy’s suit looks implausibly clean and pressed the next morning.
The supposedly durable plastic bag carrying Andy's papers and chess pieces is treated as impossibly effective.
The poster never loses a corner, and Andy appears unable to reattach it once inside his body-sized hole.
The panel asks what substitutes for Andy during bed checks while he is inside the tunnel.
The late-1940s prison sound system seems incapable of reproducing the opera beautifully, though deprived listeners might hear it subjectively.
The state responding to Andy's repeated letters with library money seems less likely than officials discarding them.
A six-foot-five man fitting through the pipe makes Tom Cruise's hypothetical casting seem logistically easier.
Red's ability to locate the correct Buxton cornfield and volcanic rock from one old conversation is debated.
The prison appears to contain no serious threats beyond the Sisters despite the story spanning nineteen years.
Red's connections do not produce protection for Andy during the two years before Hadley intervenes.
One participant says the Alan Green shoutout comes two seconds too early.
The rooming house leaves Brooks's suicide carving untouched and assigns Red the same room.
The warden allows an unusually large, lightly supervised prison library operation while profiting from Andy's laundering.
The suit should seem tighter because Andy is taller than the warden.
The library funding is defended as only five hundred dollars a year toward rehabilitation and GEDs.
The warden allowing the library to be named after Brooks is questioned.