Shutter Island

This is the movie where Leonardo DiCaprio proves he is committed to recycling. After practicing, studying and spending all of that money on lessons to speak with a Southie Boston accent in The Departed, he brings it back for Shutter Island!

Set in 1954, DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels – a heroic U.S. Marshal and World War II vet assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from an isolated mental institution for the criminally insane. Of course, isolated means it’s on an island out beyond the Boston Harbor, and only accessible by ferry boat.

Once on the island with his new partner, Chuck (Mark Ruffalo), the two start to wonder what is going on here. A strange, controlling doctor, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), has the staff tiptoeing around him and his strict protocols. The circumstances of the patient’s disappearance don’t quite add up, and Teddy seems to be haunted by his past.

Can Teddy and Chuck find out what everyone is hiding in this strange facility?

What is real and what is manufactured?

Can Teddy weed through the deceptions to find the truth?

Don’t go into Shutter Island looking for a massive, scary, gory horror movie. This is a psychological thriller along the lines of Alfred Hitchcock or Rod Serling (or what M. Night Shyamalan aspires to), where director Martin Scorsese brings a great, paranoid tone compelling the audience to put together the pieces of the possible deception, and look for some hidden agenda or secret behind every statement and action. With this cast, he’s successful.

DiCaprio is one of the best actors in the business today, and he helps create that paranoid tone as he makes Teddy into a man teetering on the edge of sanity. He brings that trademark DiCaprio intensity to the most important scenes, and keeps the audience guessing about his motivations and mental state, but it’s the slow build that impresses me most.

Along with screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (based on the novel by Dennis Lehane) and Scorsese, DiCaprio makes the audience worry about Teddy as we learn more about him and his troubled past. Because we see the strain Teddy is under, it makes the audience wonder if he is going crazy or if Dr. Cawley is orchestrating an elaborate plan to discredit the investigation and hide some dark secret about the institution.

Most of all, Shutter Island is Scorsese’s most visually stimulating movie. He immerses the audience into a cloudy, dreamlike world with a labyrinth of hallways and staircases, and nightmares that come to life in bleak, but tempting fashion. Shutter Island is more psychological than horrifying. However, Shutter Island is not a perfect movie.

Scorsese is trying to pay homage to those classical psychological movies of the past throughout the film, but, at times, Scorsese and his team are a bit heavy handed, especially with the traditional, but outdated, score which dominates too many scenes. I can’t remember a single line of dialogue that blew me away, the pace is a bit slow, and Shutter Island has some sections towards the end that drag as we get closer to the truth, but Scorsese and the team seem intent on including more visual dazzling instead of getting to the point. Worst of all, some goofy dialogue emotionally takes us out of the tense movie.

I understand what Scorsese if trying to do as he makes Shutter Island into the type of film that captured movie audiences’ imaginations in the 50’s. Unfortunately, it’s 2010, so a little bit of a modern touch could help bridge the gap.

Shutter Island is rated R for disturbing violent content, language and some nudity.