Directed by:
Martin ScorseseScreenplay:
Laeta KalogridisCinematography:
Robert RichardsonCast:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine (more)Plots(1)
The year is 1954, at the height of the Cold War, when U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are summoned to Shutter Island to investigate the implausible disappearance of a brilliant multiple murderess from a locked room within the impenetrable Ashecliffe Hospital. Surrounded by probing psychiatrists and dangerously psychopathic patients on the remote, windswept isle, they arrive into an eerie, volatile atmosphere that suggests nothing is quite what it seems.
With a hurricane bearing down on them, the investigation moves rapidly. Yet, as the storm escalates, the suspicions and mysteries multiply each more thrilling and terrifying than the next. There are hints and rumors of dark conspiracies, sordid medical experiments, repressive mind control, secret wards, perhaps even a hint of the supernatural, but elusive proof. Moving in the shadows of a hospital haunted by the terrible deeds of its slippery inhabitants and the unknown agendas of its equally ingenious doctors, Teddy begins to sense that the deeper he pursues the investigation the more he will be forced to confront some of his most profound and devastating fears. And he realizes that he may never leave the island alive.
(Paramount Pictures)
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Reviews (17)
After an hour, you start to get a sense of what it's actually like, though you may have your doubts (which is fine) – you just need to have seen a few films with similar themes. Still, it's solidly made, the acting is good, some scenes are really good, but as a whole it was too long and didn't draw me in enough to forget the long running time. A very strong 3 stars.
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Scorsese still knows how to set the right atmosphere, this is a great piece of craft and everybody is acting beautifully, so this movie isn’t just about the message. And luckily so, because after just about ten minutes there would be nothing left to watch. Despite this, I still couldn’t get that niggling thought out of my head that this should have been an episode of Tales from the Crypt and not a hundred and forty minute feature movie. If it weren’t for the opening crossing to the island and the closing approx. thirty seconds, I wouldn’t remember anything at all of this.
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This is simply a movie for pleasure. Marty plays about with absolutely everything. He plays with the music, period stylization, the storytelling and the actors play along with him. The atmosphere is thick as fog in the opening scene. Drooling psychopaths winking out on every street corner, storms rage and the road to the main message (which you can probably guess) is a winding one and goes through an impressive range of exquisite twists, turnabouts and unexpected situations that keep your eyes glued to the screen. Add some dark dreamlike hallucinations and rather forgotten memories of the main protagonist during the second world war. DiCaprio acts as if his life depended on it, maybe this is one of his best performances of his career, but even so he can hardly compare with the old vets who finally landed a superb parts. Despite how you might expect the movie to evolve, the ending is crushing and the last sentence in Shutter Island is the icing on this beautifully served cake.
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For perhaps the first time ever, Martin Scorsese doesn't tell a story but rather glues together scenes that are more like visual masturbation by him and the cinematographer. The actors (DiCaprio is traditionally great, and so is Mark Ruffalo, despite being unnecessarily kept in the back,) do their best and deliver fine dialogues, but the plot doesn't go anywhere, the film lacks any tension, and the characters drown in having to run around the island confused and in the cheap memories of Dachau. Also, waiting almost two hours for the point seems pretty damn cheap for a director who was originally supposed to sell it as the polished thriller of the year. With all due respect to the master, this is a bad and tediously boring film through and through.
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The last time I felt this much enthusiasm from perfect filmmaking in a new film was with Inglorious Basterds. From the moment they arrive on the island, it was clear that this would be an exceptional film, tailor-made for me – sometimes you just know it from the very first scene. Scorsese builds the atmosphere masterfully (shots on details, striking music, visual tricks of various crap flying around), I couldn’t find a single weak spot; Shutter Island is 130 minutes of concentrated depression, mystery and madness. Regarding the complaints of certain viewers about the lack of originality, or rather, the predictable twist, it’s worth mentioning that what they believe is a twist, it’s not so, it’s just the resolution to a classic misleading plot (in that sense, the film can only have two outcomes, and you don’t have to be a genius to “figure out” the right one) that only serves to lay down the ground for the real twist, which is very inconspicuous, original, and clever. Putting all this together, Shutter Island is for me more interesting than all of Marty’s famous gangster films.
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