3. The Shawshank Redemption - Make It Completely Red's Story
In this Stephen King adaptation Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne a wrongly convicted man sent to Shawshank prison on the charge of killing his wife. Over the course of twenty years behind bars he befriends Morgan Freeman's Red, a charismatic, compassionate and of course wise fellow inmate. He in fact narrates the story, but not his own oddly enough. Make no mistake this is Andy's story of him preserving through the brutal and unforgiving prison system. The problem is there is no real story arc for the man, Andy is a good man going into Shawshank Andy is a good man as he escapes Shawshank. On the other hand, Red is an evolving character. He really did commit murder, as far as we know, he was a misguided lost soul coming into Shawshank. Over the decades he's been in prison he had to learn the bonds of friendship and compassion. That's a character arc there, one that we never got to see from the start. As we only meet Red through Andy's arrival at the prison. We only get hints of Red when he was young which is a great shame and wasted chance at a more engaging and compelling story.