Shutter Island
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams
Rating: 3.5 STARS
For several months now I've been complaining to anyone who'd listen about the trailers for Martin Scorsese's new psychological thriller Shutter Island. I felt they gave away the entire story.
When I'm wrong boy am I wrong. Or maybe Scorsese and his gang were just really clever. The trailers for Shutter Island are just as devious as the film itself.
I think it's safe to say that Shutter Island is Scorsese's tip-of-the-hat to Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, intrigue, surprise and shock. It reminded me of such wonderful Hitchcock films as Spellbound, Suspicion and Vertigo where you really don't know what's going on until the director lets you in on the secrets.
Shutter Island is a film about dreams, nightmares, hallucinations and visions and how they can play tricks on us. It's set in 1954 when Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives at a secure facility that treats America's most dangerous deranged criminals.
Apparently a patient has escaped from the facility and is at large. The patients aren't the only ones at Shutter Island who seem strange to Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo).
The staff members and psychiatrists are just as creepy especially Dr. Crawley (Ben Kingsley) and Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow). They seem to be hiding a terrifying secret and the closer Daniels gets to uncovering it, the creepier and more dangerous they get.
Okay. Enough plot because in this film nothing and no one are what they seem and that's the great fun in Shutter Island. It plays with the viewer's mind as much as the doctors at Shutter Island are playing with Daniels' mind.
This film is based on the novel by Dennis Lahane who also wrote the mind-benders Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. If you've seen those films you'll have an idea of what you're in for with Shutter Island.
The film works not only because Scorsese is a superb director but because he has assembled a knock out cast. Everyone is playing at the top of their game in this one from Leo on down to Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson and a very mysterious, ominous Michelle Williams. Even a brief cameo by Ted Levine as the head of security at Shutter Island is brilliant.
But it's Leo who carries this film and like Johnny Depp he is the best of his generation. He's also one of the most underrated and under celebrated. His acting is what will keep you guessing right to the last SECOND of the film.
I promise you you'll be shaking your head as the credits start to roll. Not a bad thing these days when films are dumbed down so dreadfully.
