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Title: Shutter Island
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, this movie has some intense sequences, rough language, and male nudity. Recommended for ages 17 and up. |
See folks, this is what I’m talking about. If “Shutter Island” proves nothing else it’s that horror movies don’t have to suck. Yes it’s got less deaths then the Saw movies do, but this is ten times scarier. Imagine a setting that is dark and creative. Imagine characters who you care about the outcome to. Imagine a twist ending that actually gives you a chance to realize where it came from rather then dumping it on the audience for no reason. And hey, this movie even has a story. Imagine that, a movie that is about something other then how graphic it can be. The movie takes place in 1954 and is about a US Marshal named Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio), who has been assigned to find a missing prisoner who escaped from a mental institution on Shutter Island.
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He and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are greeted kindly by the main psychiatrist Dr. John Cawley (Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley), who is helpful to them only so much as though he doesn’t have to provide paperwork on what kind of things the institution does. This is all suspicious to Teddy as it is to us, and shortly afterwards the movie starts getting very weird and very scary. Teddy reveals that he’s been trying to investigate the island for years because he’s looking for someone who set home to his fire that killed his wife. Once there though he starts feeling sick and see’s illusions of his dead wife (among other things) that brings his sanity into question.
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The institution is creepy enough that we can easily suspect that some strange things would be going on down there (especially in the C building, where Teddy isn’t allowed to go). What is also strange though is that Dr. Cawley not only seems to be truthful in most of what he says, but he comes off as extremely trustworthy even when his lies don’t match up. So either the island contains a conspiracy or there’s more at work. I go into any more detail, but to say this is a masterfully crafted movie is an understatement. This is the years first great screenplay, a story that has twists and carefully constructed story elements that add to the viewers curiosity rather then pull the rug out from them. Characters who are smart and fully dimensional. I wasn’t always sure who to trust, but I never stopped questioning them.
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The movie was directed by Academy Award-winning director Martin Scoresese, who has directed a good looking film that gives the audience a lot to think about. But if the movie truly has a certain feeling to it I’d say it feels like an Alfred Hitchcock film. Indeed, if Hitchcock had made this movie I can’t imagine it being a whole lot different then what we see here. From the camera angles, to the pacing, to the ending that is the payoff of much emotional stress, I feel Scoresese directed this film as much as a silent tribute as much as he directed it to try his hand at the horror genre. The fact this movie is released in February is to it’s benefit. I’ve long suspected movie goers are hungry for good movies even during the dead Spring time frame. With “Shutter Island” they now have something to see that’s worth seeing.
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