MovieChat Forums > The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Discussion > Lots of people seem to forget Andy argua...

Lots of people seem to forget Andy arguably is a murderer

posted 3 months ago by MikeHunt12345 (789)
6 replies | jump to latest

Some people think Tommy's story is a lie, and Andy really did kill his wife and her lover, but that's not the point of this post, let's assume Tommy's story is true, and Andy really didn't kill them.

It depends how you define the word "murderer". If you define it as someone who has committed murder, Andy isn't a murderer. If you define it as someone who has murderous intentions, Andy is a murderer. He actually went to the lover's house, and stood outside the door with a loaded gun, with the intention of breaking in and killing them, before he changed his mind. That in itself is a crime punishable by jail time.

You could argue this makes him a bad person. There are some situations where even committing murder doesn't make you a bad person, such as Samuel L Jackson's character in A Time To Kill, who killed the men who raped his daughter. But Andy just wanted revenge for an affair, and later he admitted he drove her away. That doesn't make cheating OK, but to almost commit murder over it does kinda make him a bad person.

[–] liscarkat (16625) 3 months ago

If you murder someone you're a murderer. If you try to murder someone but fail you're an attempted murderer. If you think about killing someone, but change your mind and don't do it, you're not a murderer. Andy is not a murderer.

[–] MichaelJPollock (650) 13 days ago

The good and truly moral person is not the one who is never tempted to commit evil. It's the one who is tempted to, but has the moral fortitude to renounce evil and not act upon their basest impulses.
I wouldn't trust the former, because he is a saint and most likely has little in common with normal human beings and little understanding of the human experience.

[–] Costumer (1790) 12 days ago

Even the greatest saints suffered temptations. And sometimes even succumbed to them. Saints (whether you define them in religious terms or humanistic terms) are human beings.

Author of the Sodality Universe
The Road from Antioch
In the Markets of Tyre
Flight to Lystra
The Theater at Ephesus
The Council on Jerusalem

The Shattered World begins in 2025

[–] Where (1285) 12 days ago

Lawyer fucked him.

[–] strntz (10897) 12 days ago

LOL

[–] strntz (10897) 12 days ago

.. let's assume Tommy's story is true, and Andy really didn't kill them.

Tommy's story could have been true, but it did not absolve Andy of the murder.

I've argued here on MC that Andy was never actually cleared by anything seen in this movie. The closest we have to visual evidence to the contrary is when Andy told Red he didn't kill his wife and he didn't kill her lover, but he felt guilty for driving her away. That's the best evidence in the film that Andy was innocent, not Tommy's story.

One can argue that Tommy made up the story, but Tommy wasn't very bright, and I doubt he could have come up with that story and relayed it so consistently, but it's quite likely that Elmo Blatch was telling stories and not Tommy. So let's say Tommy told the truth.

Tommy said Blatch was a big mouth always bragging about his crimes and female conquests, the kind of guy who liked to be the center of attention. What if Elmo read about the murder of Andy's wife and lover and it fascinated him? That is a salacious story for sure. I'm sure it got a lot of headlines. Blatch could have imagined that he was the one who broke in and killed them, and maybe even started believing that story after telling and retelling it for 20 years.

The prosecutor had a good point - the murderer emptied the revolver and reloaded to put one more shot in each. Why would Blatch do this? That certainly was personal, and even if he knew the golf pro enough to dislike him enough to put a personal round into him, why do that to his mistress?

Tommy also said that Blatch was a nervous dude - a fart would cause him to jump. He doesn't sound like the type to first kill two people and then reload to put a single extra round in each victim. From what we know and saw about him, he probably would have fired the gun wildly and ran.

For me, it matters not. Andy didn't escape after 20 weeks, he escaped after 20 years. Either way, he did his time.