Shutter Island

"Shutter Island"
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Max von Sydow, Jackie Earle Haley, Elias Costas
Grade: B-

The premise of Shutter Island is simple; a violent female inmate has escaped a prestigious prison located on an inescapable island. The film takes place in 1954, as the film begins, two U.S. Marshalls are on their way to the island to investigate the disappearance. DiCaprio and Ruffalo play the marshalls. They're welcomed to the island but something is definitely wrong. They do their standard questioning and hunt for clues, but even the staff is acting odd, and patients are imploring for Dicaprio's character Teddy to leave.

The novel Shutter Island was written by Dennis Lehane, and now adapted into a film by legendary American filmmaker Martin Scorsese. This is Scorsese's first full length film since The Departed in 2006. The film plods along at its own deliberate pace; it's filled to the brim with exposition and plot twists that try to muddle and distort the big twist from the viewer for as long as possible.

We soon learn that Teddy has his own motives for being on the island, and that there may or not be secret psychological testing going on, under which everyone on the island knows about. Teddy isn't a stable man; Dicaprio plays him with the right amount of jittery brilliance. We see flashbacks of his violent tour in WWII, and of his dead wife played by Michelle Williams. Dicaprio has starred in three Scorsese films before this one. They're trust for each other has to be potent since Dicaprio is the vessel for Teddy's off-balance, guilt-laden protagonist, he does just enough in this role, and is usually good at playing these types of guys.

Shutter Island is successful in all of its atmospheric aspirations, there's a gothic tone and a feeling of muted dread running through the film. Teddy's flashbacks are filled with haunting yet beautiful imagery. The film was shot by Robert Richardson, who also shot 2009’s Inglorious Basterds. The problem that the film has is infusing the balance between good filmmaking and a plot worth caring about. Teddy is the closest character to sympathize with, but even he leaves us cold throughout the picture.

The rest of the cast is quite good; Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow play seedy higher ups that don't make things easy for Teddy and his partner. Jackie Early Haley, who also played Rorschach in Watchmen plays an eerie inmate who Teddy seems to know. There is no problem with the acting in this film; all of the players are doing a good job of portraying their characters to the fullest. Kingsley is particularly strong as Dr.Cawley, whom we aren't sure of until the last act. Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson pop up as two versions of the same character. They each have their one scene, and do quite well in their allotted screen time.

Shutter Island does its best to keep the audience on a different playing level. It tries to stay one step ahead of its viewers, but the so called "twist" is easily identifiable. It's a well intentioned noir thriller, with a handful of strong scenes, but in the hands of Scorsese the film should have amounted to more. Even the audience that I watched the film with grew restless as the film wore on, as I mentioned earlier, it's a long slog where the journey is supposedly greater than the end place, by the end, I'd stopped caring.