10 Huge Mistakes Which Doomed Movie Characters
3. Telling Norton The Truth - The Shawshank Redemption
In prison, honesty is decidedly not the best policy - a status quo tragically illustrated by the fate of Tommy Williams in 1993's The Shawshank Redemption.
A new prisoner doing a stretch for burglary, Tommy befriends Tim Robbins' Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman's Red Redding when he first arrives at Shawshank.
After Andy helps the young man to pass his GED exam, Tommy produces a piece of news that seems too good to be true. While incarcerated in another prison, one of Williams' former cellmates claimed responsibility for the murders Andy is currently imprisoned for - a fact that Tommy is willing to testify to.
Unfortunately, Tommy's sincerity proves to be his undoing. After Andy brings his news to the prison's loathsome warden Norton, he is banged up in solitary confinement.
Feigning concern, Norton then summons Tommy in an attempt to gauge how likely he is to testify on Andy's behalf. The instant he is assured of Williams' integrity, the warden steps away from him, allowing his sadistic right hand Byron Hadley to gun down Andy's would-be saviour under the guise of an attempted escape.