Shutter Island (2010) User Reviews

Don't be side tracked by the obvious twist.......there is more than one

[Tania_Chesala_R · 8/10 · 27 February 2010]

I know there is already a spoiler warning up top but I am going to warn you again. Don't read this because I am going to give everything away.

I had this movie all wrong I will admit at the start I didn't get it and I was angry but after having a chat with my friend who went with me we both gasped when we realised what happened. The twist wasn't that he was the inpatient (seriously I think everyone saw that coming from a mile away!) the twist was the intervention actually worked. He was cured, he deliberately made it look like he relapsed because he did not want to live with the memory of what happened to his family. He blamed himself for ignoring that his wife was clearly unstable. The line "would you rather die as a good man or live as a monster" Depicted he wanted to die as a good man (lobotomized) then live with the memory of what happened. Also the symbolism of fire and water tells you when he is hallucinating (fire) and when he is lucid (water trickling through.) The delusion he concocts to save himself from accepting the truth is that his wife died in a fire. All the people he talks to surrounded by fire is a hallucination – the woman in the cave, the patient in the cell, the scarred faced man who he thinks killed his wife, the car blowing up – all a delusion. The water symbolizes reality trying to break through. He is afraid of water – ( and rightly so!His kids were drowned, they all died in front of the lake.) Also at the start he says he gets 'sea sick' – he is mortally afraid of water. He has to swim to get to the lighthouse.

To truly get the best affect of this movie you have to see it more than once. (I have only seen this once but I promise you I will see it again)

I think John Anderson from the Wall Street Journal got it right when he says the film -

"requires multiple viewings to be fully realized as a work of art. Its process is more important than its story, its structure more important than the almost perfunctory plot twists it perpetrates. It's a thriller, a crime story and a tortured psychological parable about collective guilt."

One of the most memorable plot twists of this decade

[jackgdemoss · 9/10 · 22 July 2019]

I originally saw this film when it came out but couldn't remember it well enough to give it a rating or write a review, so a rewatch was in order. I viewed the film through the lens of already knowing the plot twist, which made it a whole different experience. The ending will be remembered throughout film history as one that showed just how viciously a well written script can flip an audience over. This really is a film you should see twice.

Shutter Island is at the top of its genre

[napierslogs · 9/10 · 22 May 2010]

Martin Scorsese has done it again. He pays attention to every detail in this film, making "Shutter Island" one of the best suspense thrillers of all time.

Visually intriguing, simplistic and absolutely phenomenal. The story is kept simplistic enough so it doesn't get absurd, but allows for an ending which you probably won't see coming. The film doesn't go for cheap thrills, so although you will be on the edge of your seat you won't get needlessly scared.

The film uses everything at its disposal from breathtaking scenery, to detailed laid-out shots, and to actors at their finest to completely engross you in the film. I loved every minute of it and highly recommend it to everyone. Even if you're not a usual fan of the genre, this film has so much more to it.

The movie is perfect psycho drama

[ruhsa · 10/10 · 24 September 2017]

Shutter Island is the story of Teddy Daniels, A U.S. federal marshal sent to the island with his partner Chuck Aule to search for the disappearance of a patient. Each scene provides a turn against their leads and compels them to look for more whilst searching in places we couldn't comprehend, including their minds. Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo feed off each other and supply great performances for their characters as expected, but some of the other characters whose names are riveted on the posters or marquees are sensational as well. The two that stuck out to me most were Ben Kingsley (Dr. Cawley) and Michelle Williams (Dolores, Teddy's wife), each of whom brought so much dramatics and new questions to the movie, developing plot twists and controversy. I don't think this film would be the same without them.

This is also a film I would recommend seeing a second time. In fact, it is even better the second time. All those pieces of that puzzle you didn't catch the first time, you will the second. You see, we as the audience are first put in the shoes of Teddy. The second? Well, without giving too much away, lets just say you are put in someones else's shoes entirely during the second viewing.

Shutter Island. A film that will make you question your own sanity. A film that will leave you breathless. A film that has re-ignited the thriller genre. A film that will leave you, and the main character, searching for answers.

"Men like you are my specialty, you know?"

[classicsoncall · 10/10 · 30 August 2010]

There are a number of films I've seen more than once, and if they're good (the only reason really, to watch them again), they become a richer experience and one gains a greater appreciation of them. "Shutter Island" might be the only picture that on subsequent viewings, becomes a DIFFERENT film from the one originally seen. I say this because the first time around, there's no way to take the character of Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) other than at face value. He's a detective investigating a missing person case on an island. Not your normal island, but one that's home to an institution for the criminally insane. Every interaction he has with a character in the picture is one between himself, Detective Daniels, and that character. As we come to learn, all that changes when Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) reveals the twist near the end of the story, at which point, one is left either totally disillusioned or utterly blown away.

What's unique and brilliant about the writing here is evident upon a second viewing. What we now know to be true about Teddy Daniels becomes even more evident. We're able to understand that in Teddy's first meeting with Naehring (Max von Sydow), Naehring is actually speaking to Laeddis. Yet those references to Laeddis/Daniels' 'defense mechanisms' could have been offered and taken either way. George Noyce (Jackie Earle Haley) was speaking to Laeddis as he had no reason not to. The vision of Rachel Solando in the cave was warning Teddy that he had no friends, and that there was no way off the island. This was a way for the viewer to understand that in some small way, Teddy/Laeddis was conversing with himself, sometimes with clarity and other times delusionally. The Warden (Ted Levine) is clearly speaking directly to Laeddis when he picks up Teddy after his night in the cave. This is all so masterfully done that even watching the picture multiple times, it's amazing to pick up on the nuance that went into developing the story.

Now I have to admit, the first time I saw the picture and it became apparent that Teddy Daniels was Laeddis, I wanted to blow it off as one of those cheap constructs that film makers are prone to indulge in just to play with the viewer's head. But somehow, this was different. This was a study, a grand two day experiment if you will, designed to force Laeddis to come to terms with himself and what he had done to become confined to an institution. The way the whole story evolves is fascinating to watch, almost like watching the making of the movie instead of the movie itself. I've seen "Shutter Island" three times now in the space of about a month, and I know with certainty that I'll be watching it again. There's not many films I can say that about, but this one just begs it, almost like a patient requiring your uninterrupted attention.

No one likes to be messed with.

[stednitzrules250 · 10/10 · 21 February 2010]

Shutter Island. A film that will divide the film community. A film that will leave many upset, and hating it. A film that has already completely split the critics. A movie that messes with you. And no one likes to be messed with. And that is exactly where it exceeds. Think I'm contradicting myself?

Shutter Island is one of the most well crafted psychological thrillers to come by since Silence Of The Lambs. And it is no coincidence both were brilliantly written novels. Shutter Island is adapted by a book written by Dennis Lehane (wrote gone baby, gone and mystic river). It is a book filled with twists and turns, that will leave the reader dizzy. And, that is what it's film counterpart does to the fullest. Martin Scorsese helms the director chair, in a movie where he is more free than any before. This is Scorsese at his most unrestrained.

Marty takes what he has learned from the great films of the past and puts it into his. The master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock's influence is everywhere you look in this film. And it is no wonder, considering Scorsese even showed one of his greatest works to the crew: Vertigo. And many of those ideas are present in Shutter Island; the cliff scenes scream Hitchcock. This is a film that creeps and crawls, and is filled with dark corners. And it is all heightened by the coming storm that looms over the island. This is classic film noir.

The story follows Teddy, a federal Marshall, and his partner Chuck (Played by DiCaprio and Ruffulo). They go to this mysterious island enveloped in fog to investigate an escape. From these opening scenes, Marty has set up a dark and creepy premise.

Almost the whole movie incorporates this story as Teddy desperately tries to find the truths he seeks. Teddy is shown as a scared man; a man of war and violence as portrayed in various flashbacks. These will go on to be increasingly important as the story progresses. We follow Teddy on his quest, through every dark corridor and perilous confrontations. Slowly, we are given pieces to the puzzle, but the audience does not even realize it. For we, like Teddy, are blind. For the moment at least. It is because of this that the thrilling conclusion will leave many blindsided. But, you see, that is where this thriller becomes something more. We as the audience are put in Teddy's shoes, and we feel all the things he feels. It is a complete assault on the senses, and it works beautifully.

This is a film you must watch carefully. That is another thing that sets this apart, it is a horror film that makes you actually think. In this day and age, I'm not surprised some found it terrible esp. after their brains have been turned to mush by these new gore filled horror films. Scorsese's ultimate goal here is to wake you up. And trust me, you probably wont like it.

This is also a film I would recommend seeing a second time. In fact, it is even better the second time. All those pieces of that puzzle you didn't catch the first time, you will the second. You see, we as the audience are first put in the shoes of Teddy. The second? Well, without giving too much away, lets just say you are put in someones else's shoes entirely during the second viewing.

Shutter Island. A film that will make you question your own sanity. A film that will leave you breathless. A film that has re-ignited the thriller genre. A film that will leave you, and the main character, searching for answers.

10 out of 10

-CLS

Movie of the decade.

[NpMoviez · 10/10 · 29 July 2018]

It is one of the best movies made by director Martin Scorsese. It is perhaps the best movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Honestly speaking, it is one of the greatest films of the decade. DiCaprio featured in two movies in 2010, the other one being "Inception". Both were excellent. To this day, they are some of the best cinematic experience I have ever had. That being said, I found "Shutter Island" to be much more superior, as "Inception" feels a little bit of a mumbo jumbo many times.

Good. "Shutter Island" is simply a masterpiece. The beginning of the movie suggests a very basic plot of a detective story, possibly a thriller. As the movie progresses, the plot becomes bigger and bigger with more and more complexity added to it. The way this happens is incredible. The pacing is really good. That is what makes the movie so interesting. And, even though the movie gets more complex, it is not difficult to keep up with the major plot points. And, the final twist is one of the best plot twists I have ever seen. I did not expect it at all. And, like the main character portrayed by DiCaprio, we are not ready to believe what is being told until a lot of reveals finally convince us. There are a lot of many things that might seem to be pointless before the final twist which are totally relevant with the story that is actually being told. The character of Edward Daniels is superbly written. We get to know where the character is coming from and we can get behind the character - yet another excellent thing about this movie. There are some dream sequences that seems like a filler, but is a major indication to the reveal. There are quite many "illusions" which feel very real, but carry no real meaning in the end. There are many additional things which may seem like a diversion from the story being told, but are actually enhancing it. Some dialogues between the main character and an imprisoned character get a very different interpretation after it's all set and done. So much of a complex story, yet no giant inconsistencies at all. It's just superbly written and directed and acted. It's totally different from "Memento" (2000) but still, has a lot of similarities. We get into the main character's head and we just get his interpretations, different types though. Towards the end, we don't want to step fully outside his head, but when we finally do, it's mind blowing. The ending moments were conceived by many to be confusing. But, if you keep up with the entire story, it's meaning is quite obvious. The movie is dark and psychologically engrossing. Yet it does have a short lived and very brief happy moment with the tiny plotline involving Dr. Cawley's motives. That's all I can say without getting into complete spoilers. Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kingsly have given some of the great performances till date. I don't have anything that bugged me. So no mixed or bad aspects of the film.

Conclusion. On the whole, for me, it's the movie of the decade. The decade is almost over, and still I have not got any movie in the league of "Shutter Island". It's a very engaging and thrilling movie. It's one of those films I consider to be an all time great.

Rating. Score : absolute 10/10 Grade : A+

love this movie highly recommend.

[0U · 23 February 2020]

Visually beautiful, wonderfully acted, and relentlessly gripping, Shutter Island is a brilliantly unrestrained psychological thriller that keeps its audience riveted throughout its entire duration.

All it Takes is One Line of Dialogue to Make an Impact...

[TheDeadMayTasteBad · 9/10 · 23 February 2010]

There is one line of dialogue, right at the end of Shutter Island before the credits roll, that elevates the emotion of the film and makes it much more powerful. For those of you, like me, who read and enjoyed the novel before seeing the film and felt that the trailers and advertisements for this film were leading you to believe there wouldn't be any narrative surprises in store, think again! Scorsese's film features that one brief piece of dialogue at the films conclusion that results in an entirely different perception of the final act. The rest of the film, however, is very faithful to Dennis Lehane's already great story.

Shutter Island represents exactly what one should hope for when seeing a novel being interpreted to film. While it certainly does the source material justice, it also adds small changes that make for a distinctive experience. Even if you've read the novel multiple times, you'll feel like you're reading the book for the first time again while watching. Scorsese perfectly recreates the menacing atmosphere of the island on film. Every location is foreboding and drenched with hints of unseen danger in dark corners. The lighthouse, the caves, the civil war fort housing "the most dangerous patients," and the island itself--every locale seems large yet claustrophobic and isolated at the same time.

I often experience claustrophobia myself and there are certain films that really capitalize on that personal fear and make it more relevant and eerie to me. Neil Marshall's The Descent was one such picture, and this is another. An confined island is a terrific horror location and it comes with its own type of fear. The utter desperation to escape from a persistent and confined nightmare is something Teddy (Dicaprio) is receiving in high doses, and so does the audience.

As with Scorsese and DiCaprio's previous collaborations, this is a movie that must be seen. Here they explore the horror/thriller genre with gravitas, with no small part played by Laeta Kalogridis in supplying the screenplay. While most modern pictures of its kind lack character or any real sense of suspense, Shutter Island doesn't go for cheap gags. I concur with Ebert when he says one of the key elements to this film is that it releases its tension through suspense instead of mindless action sequences. That's not to knock a well-deserved frenetic scene of violence every once in awhile--it works to the advantage of some films like Evil Dead II and Planet Terror--but had Teddy and Chuck gone running and gunning through the facility's faculty, the mood this movie keeps in check so well would have been lost.

However, that mood isn't sacrificed and "spooky" is punched up to full force. A considerable amount of that spooky is generated by a "best of" collection of actors that have mastered the art of creepy: Ben Kingsley, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, and Max Von Sydow just to name a few. Had Tom Noonan been thrown in the cast as well, my "Top Five People I Would Not Want to Be Left in the Dark with, Especially in a Room with No Doors or Windows" list would have been completely exhausted. On that note, is it just me or has Sydow mysteriously not aged since The Exorcist? Was there a secret pact made between Lucifer and Father Merrin? Whether he sold his soul or not, he's quite ominous in every single scene he is present in. All of this great talent in front of the camera doesn't mean anything though if you don't have a faithful orchestrator behind it. Luckily you have Scorsese leading the lens and he points the movie in the right direction, even if this isn't among his very best works. His style works amazingly with suspense laden projects and at times he even seems to channel Hitchcock and Kubrick, though there's always something distinctively Scorsese about the presentation. I found the editing in the opening scene, with Chuck and Teddy approaching Shutter Island, to be very odd and frantic, though I think the audience will know why Scorsese displayed the scene the way he did after completing the film.

With a body of work so impressive, Shutter Island is among captivating company. The good news is that Shutter Island carves out a place of its own in his resume. While no Goodfellas or Raging Bull or Taxi Driver, I have no problem placing Shutter side by side The Last Temptation of Christ and Bringing Out the Dead. The cinematography is bright and gorgeous. Scorsese doesn't rely on the over-grainy, ugly presentation that most modern horror or suspense-riddled thrillers rely on. He uses lush, bright color during daytime and dream sequences to flush out a distinct feeling of terror.

Shutter Island isn't just a pretty face, its also got a great story to boot and this is why I've been anticipating the film for so long. As mentioned earlier, I've been exposed and digested the source material myself before seeing the movie. I was worried the trailers for the film were giving away too much through their spots on television and on the silver screen, but Scorsese has added enough to the film for the story to feel fresh even for those "in the know." You are transferred in the films paranoia and phobia once the camera pans through the mental facilities open doors. Lehane is one of the luckiest authors on the planet to have his work adapted to the big screen by talents such as Eastwood and Scorsese, but his work is brilliant and deserving of such treatment.

At the risk of spoiling plot points for potential viewers who have not read the book, I'll leave a Related Recommendations section concealed in "Spoiler" tags. Discussing this story at any length can be quite revealing.

movie ending complicated

[gayan-27516 · 10/10 · 7 June 2020]

Teddy is refusing to accept the fact that he killed his wife after she murdered their children and has become delusional and violent. The role-play was the last effort to force him to accept his crimes or he would be lobotomised. The final moment suggests he has finally understood it but pretends he hasn't, in order to be lobotomised, to avoid living with grief

Decent thriller, surprisingly polarizing

[kosta-pap · 6/10 · 4 April 2010]

I was very surprised to find this film was either loved or hated by most reviewers. Of course, it tends to be an inherent quality of publicly posted comments that people with strong opinions will be the ones who will bother to post, but still... I thought the film was a decent and well-made one. Predictable - yes. Over the top acting - come on, it's Marty! Too long - again, Marty. However, I must insist that the predictability of the ending was rather a strength of the film: If one were to follow the "conspiracy/detective" plot through 2 hours, it's logical that the ending will disappoint - but that's your problem, dear viewer! Not only is the insanity plot much more interesting, the film becomes much more interesting once you watch it from this premise. For example, the warden who drives Teddy back from the cliffs, who isn't buying into the doctors' tactics and gives him the "you're dangerous and violent" comments: great scene, but merely weird if you haven't suspected the context. Flaws: The score was horrible. Horrible. Destroyed many scenes, and I'm so glad Marty toned it down toward the end. The dead children scenes were redundant and extremely overused; then again, Marty always does that with his favorite "symbols": rubbing it in, again and again. Some of the dialogue could have been much better written, but it's a mainstream movie after all. One last note on the history of psychiatry: the struggle between psychosurgery and modern psychiatry devoted to the phenomenology of the patient's narrative - that is a true fact, and it did begin in the fifties. Furthermore, going along with a patient's delusion at crtain points of the therapeutic process: I'm appalled that many reviewers found this so absurd. I'm a psychiatrist and it's my line of work. Granted, the film is an exaggerated version of that, but it's fiction after all.

One of Scorsese's best

[davidmvining · 10/10 · 29 March 2021]

This movie's ending is a case study in how to read movies. If you consider what was said before, what was done before, and the basics of the character's journey, there is literally only one way to read the movie's final moments. Everything up to that moment builds to the finale is designed to feed a specific end point, and it helps the movie as a whole that everything up to that point is incredibly well done. Scorsese had one early foray into big budget filmmaking with New York, New York, which wasn't really any kind of success, but his turn into big budget filmmaking with another two decades of experience under his belt has been far more successful as he is able to still coax quality performances from his actors while working with more traditionally narrative based scripts (this time based on a novel by Dennis Lehane) and much more intricate and larger production design.

Off the coast of Massachusetts lays Shutter Island, an old Civil War fort that has been repurposed into a mental hospital for the criminally insane. A mystery pops up when one of their patients has disappeared from her cell and two US Marshals arrive on the ferry. These are Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo). The movie begins with ominous tones from the soundtrack as the ferry emerges from the fog, and Teddy is having trouble with sea sickness. Getting on the island, everything feels off from the get go. The guards are watching them too closely. They're required to give up their firearms. They're not allowed to see any of the hospital personnel files. There's a German doctor of high position less than a decade after the end of World War II. The guards don't even seem interested in looking for the lost patient. Patients and personnel all seem coached and artificial, and behind it all is Dr. Cawley (Ben Kinglsey).

Nothing about the story of Rachel Solando disappearing from her cell makes any sense, up to and including the need to send for US Marshals and to hamstring them from any kind of real investigation at the same time. How could she have gotten by so many orderlies? How could she vanish for so long without her shoes? How could she wander the grounds without shoes at all considering the rough terrain of the island? The staff, in particular Dr. Cawley, are obviously hiding something from Teddy, and Teddy's going to figure it out.

He and Chuck are not long term partners, Chuck having met Teddy for the first time on the boat, so Teddy tells Chuck his real reason for taking the case. He's heard things about Shutter Island, stemming from stories he's heard about the man who lit the fire in the apartment building he was living in that killed his wife. He's there, but there have also been tales of sick experiments being run on the patients, particularly in Ward C built from the actual fort while the rest of the hospital was made of the troops' barracks. Teddy's going to get to the bottom of this and blow the whole thing up to the world.

It's a paranoia infested plot that involves anti-communist agents, young and innocent socialists, and a power mad doctor, and it's all in Teddy's mind.

The main strength of this movie really is Teddy's descent into madness and how it's masked for so long as a him getting closer to the truth. That manifests in particular through memories and dreams. Teddy was a soldier in World War II and helped liberate Dachau, and he's consumed by the memory of the commandant killing himself poorly and dying in a pool of his own blood as well as the piles of bodies in the ice and snow and his part in the quick execution of the SS guards. He also has dreams of his departed wife in their apartment. There's a mysterious presence of water, and her back is hollowed out and ashy from fire as she crumbles in his arms.

As the story progresses and Teddy becomes convinced that Dr. Cawley is feeding him drugs in the food, water, and even cigarettes, the visions become more pronounced in his waking life. His wife and a little girl appear before him, and he talks to them directly without anyone else seeing them. However, because the movie is told really strictly from Teddy's point of view we don't have any other information until later that the exact opposite is happening, that he's in withdrawal from the drugs that he had been on before a couple of days before.

The reveal at the end in the much talked about lighthouse is a gut punch. The true nature of Teddy's sickness, the true history of his wife and how she died, it's all inexorably tied to what we've seen before, and the audience wants to reject that reality as much as Teddy does. It's horrible what Teddy went through, and his insistence on living in a fantasy world of Nazi experiments suddenly makes so much more sense.

Now, the reading of the ending. There's really only one interpretation of Teddy's final choice. If we have all this talk of running from the past, of having a choice of becoming a monster or staying a good man, what possible explanation could there be other than Teddy is completely self-aware when he says the fateful words that lead to the final surgery? If not, then the rest of the movie was just a series of random events that don't mean anything, but if those events do mean something then the ending means that Teddy is making his choice in full command of his facilities. He's faced with the truth of his actions, of his past, and of his wife, and he can't take it. He can either descend back into madness or he can remove himself from that completely, and he chooses removal.

This is such a natural follow up to The Departed for Scorsese. Both are about identity, about making choices of who we are, but Shutter Island is firmly within the psychological horror genre while The Departed was a crime movie. There's so much to chew on for the audience on these questions of who we choose to be based on what came before us.

On top of all that, this movie is gorgeous to simply look at. Up until this point, this is Scorsese's best looking movie (Silence, I think, ends up even prettier). The deep blues and greens of the island, the storm, and the dark corridors of Ward C along with the bright red of the old barracks all provide this wonderfully rich color palette that is wonderfully pleasing to the eye. Lensed by Robert Richardson who had worked with Scorsese on Bringing Out the Dead and The Aviator (where color had been rather precisely designed to recreate color photography from different eras of Hollywood's history), the movie just looks fantastic.

DiCaprio gives a very good performance as Teddy, steadily losing his mind as he goes deeper into the mysteries of the island. Ben Kinglsey balances right between professional, menacing, and caring in ways that make perfect sense within their contexts but add up to a man frustrated in his quest to help a sick man. Michelle Williams is wounded and also rather terrifying as Teddy's wife, Dolores. There are very small parts from Elias Koteas as Andrew Laeddis, the man Teddy's trying to find, and by Jackie Earle Haley as George Noyce, a patient who'd received a beating. I suppose the only weak link is Mark Ruffalo as Chuck. He's fine as the clueless US Marshal in over his head early, but he feels kind of empty late in the film when his true nature appears.

Still, this movie is great, and it's one of Scorsese's best. Intelligently written by Laeta Kalogridis, beautifully photographed by Robert Richardson, and scored by a variety of classical music arranged by long-time Scorsese collaborator Robbie Richardson of The Band, Scorsese's Shutter Island shows the advantages of a master of the craft given a large budget to fully tell a story that appeals to him.

Disappointing Ending

[politically_incorrect204 · 6/10 · 20 February 2010]

I hate to say this as much anyone else but for me this film had a horribly disappoint ending. First before I delve into that I'd like to say that the acting, the writing, the shooting, the film in general as far as quality goes was very good. But the ending was very disappointing. And no I am no idiot or newbie when it comes to film. But I thought the was very much a cop out. Now granted I know this is based off of a novel, hence there are certain restraints to adhering to this novel somewhat. That being said I found the idea of the medical experimentation, mental hospital, nazi experiments, and astray patients much more tantalizing, realistic, and more full of potential. The trick ending where its all in someone's head is done far too often sadly. I was hoping that while it dragged one there at the end it would ultimately reveal he was playing them or that he would stay true and not give in. But that didn't happen. I guess for me I was just expecting something not so cliché for an ending from the likes of Scorsese's genius mind. But all things said and done I definitely can't give this movie all negative remarks, wonderfully acted and scripted. Great atmosphere, shooting, photography, etc. But I feel the ending should have been less cliché or not as cheap I guess. Felt like it was just an easy way out and not fully developing the tension and intrigue that they had built throughout. But either way its each to their own, so maybe you will appreciate the ending more than I. FYI - I do understand the undertones of the ending and the ambiguity, but I don't think that saves the ending or does the film justice in it's entirety.

The Cabinet of Dr. Shutter Island - spoiler alert

[meftsimmons · 1/10 · 21 February 2010]

First, I know many who read this will not take the time to research what I'm saying to see that it is true and further, many won't have the ability to see it even if they did. So, I know this review will be thumbed down by those who don't like the hard truths in life but this movie (or should I say novel by Dennis Lehane) was a nice piece of plagiarism based upon a 1920 silent film called The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The same basic plot exists in both as well as the exact same twist ending. The lead character investigates an insane asylum and tries to put clues together to figure out the mystery surrounding the place but as we near the end, we learn that the lead character isn't there to investigate anything. He's an inmate there who has invented much of what he was investigating as part of his coping mechanism.

Shutter Island would have been a good movie if it hadn't ripped off The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari so blatantly. Lehane obviously knew that the old movie was in the public domain but instead of telling the viewers that it was based on that movie, they just pass it off as his (and/or Scorseesi's idea). That, my friends, is the definition of plagiarism.

I don't recommend this whatsoever for this reason. It is a shame and Lehane should be called on it but who will do it? Too much $ to be made reheating the old dishes and calling them made from scratch.

Watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (it's on y o u t u b e if you want to compare the two and see that what I'm saying is 100% correct).

I almost never write reviews but this time, I had to.

I can't look away...

[dvc5159 · 8/10 · 16 April 2010]

Finally, a horror/thriller that actually, genuinely scares the crap out of you. Not because it has fancy villains in masks or sadistic buckets of gore throughout. No, it scares you because it messes with your mind. Most will hate this movie, they don't like their brains being tampered with. I loved it. It's what we needed after all those gory R-rated and sometimes lame-duck PG-13 horror crap-fests.

The horror/thriller genre has been raped lately, with gore and scantily clad- women replacing the noir and terror that Alfred Hitchcock perfected in the '50s and '60's. Here director Martin Scorsese delivers in full blast, crafting a thriller in his own unique vision. The atmosphere throughout the movie is tense and unsettling. Slow as it may be, but it is crucial to the movie and it's genuinely gripping. Your attention WILL not be lost. The scenery is beautiful and finely done with no excessive lighting, grain or darkness. The editing by Thelma Schoonmaker is fluid and pitch-perfect, and never makes the film lose focus. The movie is based on a book by Dennis Lehane and is packed with twists and turns that will leave you breathless and uneasy. The movie cranks the breathlessness and uneasiness up to the power of 5. The music is also perfectly suited with the scenes. There is sometimes no music during suspenseful moments, and sometimes the music makes the scene even more disturbing and memorable. Alfred Hitchcock's noirish thriller style is back with a vengeance, here to teach today's moviegoers the REAL meaning of suspense and horror.

All the actors in the movie are in top-form. Once again, you can't go wrong with a Leonardo DiCaprio/Martin Scorsese collaboration. As the protagonist, we the audience are thrust into his shoes and we are about as confused and scared as his character is, we feel what he feels. It becomes a psychological trip that poses many, many questions about oneself, that to discuss them here would spoil the entire movie. There are some flashbacks in the movie, but all of them are important clues to DiCaprio's character. DiCaprio gives a stunning performance, once again tempting the Academy to give him another Best Actor nomination. DiCaprio gives a vivid portrayal of a vulnerable, haunted and ultimately terrified man. Apart from DiCaprio there's really not much I can say about the supporting cast, because they are all also terrific. Ben Kingsley; Mark Ruffalo; Michelle Williams; Max Von Sydow; Jackie Earle Haley; Emily Mortimer; Patricia Clarkson; Ted Levine; Elias Koteas; John Carroll Lynch. All of them.

In short, this is a psychological and frightening masterpiece that will make you scared, will make you think, and will make you seek psychological help. This is one of the best films of the year. See it, go in with an open mind and prepare to be blown away.

Overall value: 9/10.

I know it's convoluted and slow, but stick with this one...really.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 8 July 2011]

2010 was very good to Leonardo DiCaprio. Shedding his pretty little boy image, he played in two very gritty and similar films, "Shutter Island" and "Inception". I saw them both and enjoyed them both. And, to buck the tide, I'd have to say I actually liked "Shutter Island" a little more...really. Now do NOT just rush out to rent this one, as I can't see this film appealing to everyone. It IS confusing. The plot can feel a bit tiresome and slow. But, if you are very patient, it all comes together perfectly--with the last 15 minutes totally enthralling me. I think part of it is because I am a retired psychotherapist and psychology teacher--and the film is a great psychological drama. And, the story actually is consistent psychologically and is actually plausible.

Now I could recap the plot, but currently there are something like a bazillion reviews on IMDb for this film. Instead, let's talk about what I liked. First and foremost, the writing was simply great--very intelligent and well-crafted. It really makes you think and doesn't underestimate the audience's intelligence. Second, the acting is really good. DiCaprio was excellent, but having Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow REALLY made this a wonderful picture. Watch this one...it's currently on premium cable. And, it's also a film that bear re-watching as there are many layers to the film you won't notice the first time.

Of all the movies in theatres to see, this is worth your time

[slothhead54 · 9/10 · 17 February 2010]

I just saw Shutter Island this evening, just prior to its American release. I have to say this film was full of intrigue. Prior to viewing this film I had built a preconceived notion of what this thriller was going to be like because I was fooled yet again by good marketing when watching the trailer. This is probably not the movie for your average film-goer who wants an easy plot line to follow and little thought required. This movie does challenge the viewer physchologically and definitely holds your attention all the way through. For someone who was never much of a Leonardo fan, his performance is brilliant, so much range to his character. In fact all of the acting in this film is excellent. The directing is probably the best quality to this film. I always enjoy watching a film that is as unpredicatable as this film and where the director has turned the plot line on to his viewer.

Which Would Be Worse, To Live As A Monster Or To Die As A Good Man?

[LeoCrow2002 · 10/10 · 10 April 2010]

If Paramount Pictures had released Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island last year – the original release date was October 2nd, 2009 – I would have considered the film the best movie of the year. As it stands, the rest of 2010 has a long way to go in terms of matching the quality and effectiveness of Scorsese's new picture. It's a fascinating character drama, an exciting and almost experimental exploration of the human mind, a reinvention of the horror genre and a dynamic acting showcase for its star, the incredible and still very underrated Leonardo DiCaprio.

Shutter Island is also an incredibly appropriate entry in the Scorsese canon – it's a film about an alienated man haunted by his past. Add Teddy Daniels to the list of Scorsese's tragic and multilayered antiheroes – Jake La Motta, Travis Bickle, Henry Hill, Howard Hughes, Billy Costigan, Rupert Pupkin, Jesus Christ. The film also continues Scorsese's fascination with our understanding of violence (it should be noted that our perception of the lead character's violent actions changes dramatically when watching the film for a second time).

Shutter Island is eerie from the very beginning. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and his newly assigned partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) steadily approach an island off the coast of Massachusetts known as Shutter Island, a mental hospital for the criminally insane. The year is 1954, and Scorsese and music supervisor Robbie Robertson subtly incorporate vintage (and sometimes downright disturbing) 1950s music into the sound mix. Once on the island, Daniels and his partner meet with Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), who explains to the Marshals that one of the island's patients has mysteriously disappeared overnight. The investigation that ensues is a fascinating exploration of insanity.

Hovering over every scene is a paranoid, post-war anxiety shared explicitly by our protagonist and thoroughly felt and realized by Scorsese. Tensions rise as Teddy recalls horrific memories from liberating a concentration camp during the war, and his suspicions of Nazism and conspiracy by the House of Un-American Activities on the island become our suspicions. The best Scorsese films force the audience to live inside the minds of moderately-to-severely delusional characters weighed down by an enormous and overwhelming guilt. Shutter Island does just that. There is an unease throughout the entire film, deliberate disturbances in continuity that some audiences might mistake for sloppy editing. That's simply Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker toying with the audience, making us question the reality we're watching and the reliability of our protagonist.

The film is a brilliant melding of film noir, detective mystery and psychological horror, at its very core an exploration of an emotionally disturbed human psyche, disguised as a Hitchcockian thriller that works as both a homage to Scorsese's favorite psychological thrillers from the 1940s and 1950s while simultaneously elevating itself into something larger and more complicated. When you watch Shutter Island, you're not just watching Scorsese's film – you're watching thousands of classic movies at once, assembled together in a picture conceived by a filmmaker whose encyclopedic knowledge of film history pours into every detail of every frame, so much so that an already-genuinely suspenseful scene of DiCaprio racing up a flight of winding stairs simultaneously serves as a homage to Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes (1948).

Unfortunately, Shutter Island has come under attack from, as my good friend calls them, the pseudo-intellectual crowd. From what I can gather, the general complaint is that the movie takes itself too seriously dramatically, and that some of the dramatic shifts in the film are laughable. Perhaps this is because Scorsese refuses to compromise his vision by winking at the audience. When discussing The Best Films of the 1990s with Martin Scorsese in early 2000, film critic Roger Ebert notes that at some point in the 1990s, existentialism, "the idea of what we do with our lives," was "replaced by irony, so that everything has quotation marks around it." He then adds, however, that Scorsese's "films are not in quotation marks...they are meant."

And he's absolutely right. Scorsese can't make an ironic film - a film too afraid to deal head- on with real, palpable human emotion, therefore putting the actions of its characters in huge quotation marks. My favorite films of the past few years don't have ironic quotation marks around their characters, either. I don't buy movies that do that – it's a cheap way of pleasing the cynical, highbrow crowd who only accept genuine human emotion in films if it comes from Pixar Animation or a foreign-language film. I love those movies, too, but I haven't given up on serious American films that aim for high character drama and succeed. I'm talking about Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), Scorsese's The Aviator (2004), Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005) and now, Shutter Island. These are films that take their characters and their plights seriously.

Every negative review I've read doesn't seem to consider how effective the film is on a visceral level, how strong and forceful the performances are from top to bottom and the powerful manner in which screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis keeps the story grounded in the deep emotional turmoil of its characters. Shutter Island is a real film, the kind they don't make anymore, exceeding the supposed limitations of its genre and offering its audience something challenging and psychologically fascinating. Scorsese doesn't have to make movies anymore - he's already made more masterpieces than any other living filmmaker - but we're lucky that he's still exploring his obsessions in new and inventive ways. Shutter Island should be met with applause, not simply because the film marks the latest work from our finest living filmmaker, but because it's also the best damn movie you'll see this year.

Best Film of the Decade...

[Ch4ndler_B1ng · 10/10 · 9 March 2020]

68% on Rotten Tomatoes, really?

This movie has multiple meanings but at times it is hard to explain the meaning because you can't find the words to describe it. So I'm going to try and keep it easy to understand.

At the beginning we see our main character, Teddy Daniels a.k.a. Andrew Laeddis (as we find out towards the end) throwing up on a ferry saying it's because he is seasick, but now I get it. He is throwing up because he so horrified by his past, his wife killing his three children by drowning them and him shooting her in the stomach that he gets sick every now and then. Ben Kingsley's character says that Dr Sheehan is overseas, which we find out is actually Andrew's psychiatrist for Shutter Island. His disguise name is Chuck Aule and he tries to play the part as Daniel's buddy in this new situation.

Close to the introduction of the film, we see the cops handling rifles when Daniels gets out from the ferry, this is because he is a dangerous patient and we have no idea when he is just going to get mad and kill somebody. He has had a short temper ever since the death of his wife and his three children. When you first watch the movie, you don't realise why the cops could be handling the rifles when Teddy is around, that is the genius of Scorsese. Second time around, you notice something odd about the way people act around Andrew, they're scared of him, they try to act civil around him but the freak out!

The one scene where Teddy and Chuck are interviewing patients and he comes across that one female that seems fine, he asks her, "Have you ever seen a patient called Andrew Laeddis?" she answers back, frightened, "Nope, never heard of him" and runs out crying, that is because she is legitimately afraid of him.

And if you pay real close attention the name that Teddy gives his wife, Rachael Solando and the detective name he gives himself Teddy Daniels spells out the real names of the two. R A C H A E L S O L A N D O D O L O R E S C H A N E L T E D D Y D A N I E L S A N D R E W L A E D D I S

Definitely check this movie out, my favourite film of the 2010's and by far one of my favourite psychological thrillers. Grade: A+

Gripping, edge of seat viewing.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 10/10 · 4 November 2023]

US Marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule travel to an asylum on a remote island, aiming to discover a missing patient, there they discover some very strange goings on there.

Shutter Island is probably in my top twenty films of all time, when I first saw it I didn't fully understand it, since then I've studied all sorts of theories, and tried to put the pieces together.

You may need to watch it for a second time, as some of the pieces mah not fall into place, but when they do..... The twist was brilliant, I didn't see it coming first time round.

Gripping, imaginative, clever, twisted, engrossing, I could go on, it's a wonderful movie, one that really does make you think, as an attentive viewer you will be hugely rewarded.

I don't know why, but to me it's never felt like a Martin Scorsese film, maybe it's the tone or the actual story itself, but it's just so unlike any of this other works.

Scorsese always knows how to get the best our of Di Caprio, and once again he delivers, it's a quite brilliant performance.

10/10.

Mind Games

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 13 March 2010]

Shutter Island is a body of land in Boston Harbor which has a hospital for the criminally insane. It's run by a pair of doctors played by Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow who have certainly essayed roles of some very deep villainy. Couple that with the fact that this film is set in post World War II where America has just been fighting with people who have mysterious accents like Von Sydow and Kingsley. It's a recipe for a Hitchcock like thriller.

US Marshal Leonardo DiCaprio has been sent to Shutter Island with his new partner Mark Ruffalo to investigate the disappearance of a woman who was declared criminally insane by the courts and is now confined to the island facility. Though it is a hospital also, primarily Shutter Island is a prison and run by the Federal government and subject to their jurisdiction.

Although Ruffalo is content to follow DiCaprio's lead, Leo's not happy with the lack of cooperation he's getting on the investigation, even more unhappy that inclement weather is forcing he and Ruffalo to stay on the island. Something suspicious is going on and DiCaprio's going to get to the bottom of it.

Actually something very suspicious is going on there, some very intricate mind games are being played, some experimentation is being conducted by the staff. But trust me, it's beyond DiCaprio's powers of grasp.

Shutter Island marks the third film that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have teamed as director/star. It's possible Leo is trying to tie Robert DeNiro for times working with Scorsese. This part is certainly one a younger DeNiro might have done. I don't think Shutter Island ranks up there with either The Aviator or The Departed it's still an intricately plotted story and one where the lead has to be convincing or the film goes nowhere. DiCaprio doggedly plods on with his investigation while battling some inner demons that the audience is gradually let it on. A younger DeNiro couldn't have been better.

The rest of the cast ably supports Leo, but in the final analysis Shutter Island belongs to him and to Martin Scorsese for putting it all together. Alfred Hitchcock would be proud.

Great a must watch !!

[czavaleta73 · 9/10 · 23 February 2010]

I saw this and I knew what to expect going in to the film as I had already read about half of the book but never got the chance to finish it. But I was surprised at how faithful the film was to the original material.The directing was also masterfully done and pretty cool I saw some cool camera tricks I hadn't seen since Martin Scorsese directed Bringing Out The Dead, Martin Scorsese did one great job and everyone was top notch especially Ben Kingsley and DiCaprio and I never though I would jump out of fright especially in a Scorsese film but I did. All in all a solid thriller with a good story and some great performances and for me it's the best film I've seen in 2010 so far.

Don't you get it? You're a rat in a maze.

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 8 May 2010]

US Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) travels to an island asylum facility for the criminally insane with his newly assigned partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo). Their reason for being at Ashecliff Hospital is to investigate the mysterious disappearance of murderess Rachel Solando. But Teddy has another issue to deal with at Ashecliff, namely a meeting with Andrew Laeddis (Elias Koteas), the man he believes responsible for the death of his wife (Michelle Williams). Nothing is what it seems at the facility though, and the further Teddy & Chuck investigate, the murkier the truths of Ashecliff become.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island is adapted from the best selling novel of the same name written by Dennis Lehane ("Mystic River/Gone Baby Gone"). It finds the talented director getting closer to horror than at any point in his career, it also finds him arguably over cooking his grits. Lehane's novel is a page turning lesson in thriller writing, there's no need for deep cranial thinking or fill in the blanks like musings. Scorsese has crafted a movie that, whilst both stylish and moody, is far more intricate than it needed to be.

From the off we saw reams of amateur reviewers dissecting the film and searching for other worldly cinematic meanings. The truth is, is that they don't exist, it is just a great story pinging with psychological twisters. Lehane himself said he felt it was a book he kind of knocked out while in his flow (he undersells himself mind). Scorsese, clearly loving the source to be sure, has crammed too much in for the film to be an across the board winner. Technically accomplished? Without doubt. Depth to the story? You bet. But the reality is that the depth isn't enough to sustain all the genre blending atmospherics that is Marty's want. One is inclined to feel that he so aware that he is treading on well worn genre ground (spot the homages to film noir, old time horror and Hitchcockian grandeur), that he's trying to steer the viewers away from the obviousness on offer. The film is further let down by the second half, where it positively crawls along, something not helped by the fact that the first hour bristles with moody excitement and a promise of clinically executed terror. Anticipation can be a real killer at times...

Yet as is normally the way with a professionally assembled Scorsese picture, there's still so much to enjoy and moments that ensure it will always be a divisive film in the New Yorker's cannon. The cast are mostly great, DiCaprio delivers a stunning performance, one that can only be appreciated once the story has reached the climax. Ruffalo (restrained), Ben Kingsley (shifty) & Max Von Sydow (troubling) all do what is needed and in keeping with the tone of the piece. While the girls - Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson & Williams - have small but crucial parts to play.

Then there's the supporting characters played by some quality character actors. Koteas is joined by Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levein & John Carroll Lynch. How many of you noticed that we here have a roll call of cinematic serial killers? Edgar Reese, Freddy Krueger, Buffalo Bill and Arthur Lee Allen! (OK, Allen was not proved but "Zodiac" the movie lends us to believe it was him). The music used is suitably heart pounding and Robert Richardson's photography is on the money, especially within the dimly lit Ashecliff walls (the foreboding Medfield State Hospital for location filming). The costumes also have a nice 50s look to them, our first encounter of Teddy & Chuck sees them splendidly adorned in film noir hats and coats. While Thelma Schoonmaker's editing is up to the usual tight standard.

It's always tricky when great directors are involved, so unsurprisingly we witnessed at the start a difference of opinion with the critics as to how good Shutter Island is? What most agreed on was that the film fluctuates in quality and should have been, given the talent behind and in front of the camera, a much better picture. There's also no getting away from the fact that if you have read the book first the impact of the ending is considerably weakened. Personally I feel Scorsese was the wrong director for this particular source, but that's me, and be that as it may, he still manages to come out of it in credit with his fans - though even if he just passed gas some of them would proclaim it as a masterpiece... 7.5/10

Scorsese throws a curve ball; audience strikes out

[gregeichelberger · 4/10 · 24 February 2010]

Last year, I lamented the fact that Martin Scorsese's long-await psychological thriller "Shutter Island" was relegated to the dead movie month of February, especially when it was receiving serious Oscar buzz at the time.

Rumors floated about that the studio and Scorsese had come to a rift, that Marty wanted too much money, that he was being punished for being the most arrogant yet most talented director in the biz. Yep, as these stories flew, I sided 100 percent with Scorsese and felt he was being persecuted - once again.

Then I saw "Shutter Island." Now I know what the fuss wasn't all about.

If ever a motion picture needed to be seen in February this is it. As difficult to watch as it is to review, "Shutter Island" is a psychotropic mish-mash of "Shawshank Redemption" meets "Vertigo" meets "The Sixth Sense" meets "Inglourious Basterds" meets "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," all neatly wrapped up as an ode to Alfred Hitchcock but coming off as simply a nod to Brian DePalma.

Littered with weird visions, wild hallucinations, back-breaking plot twists and - unfortunately - scene after scene of dead children, this movie laps itself in confusion and covers itself with a thick layer of obfuscation leaving one shaking one's head and wondering just what the point of the entire enterprise was.

Now, no doubt, those who love this film will toss about accusations of the stupidity of this scribbler, that he has no clue about the nuances of the Dennis Lehane novel from which it came; or the depth of the emotional screenplay adaptation by Laeta Kalogridis (whose last major screenplay was the wonderful, historically-accurate "Pathfinder").

That being written, to me, this movie had so much potential - all of which was smashed to bits by heavy-handed direction, a punch-in-the-face musical score, dead-end plot lines and a mystery that Nancy Drew herself would have found far too easy to solve. Then, after the endless maze of twists and turns we're forced go through, the movie takes a lame swipe at McCarthyism - where was Charlie McCarthy when I needed him?

It's 1954 and U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo, "Where the Wild Things Are") arrive at a creepy federal asylum for the criminally insane off the coast of Massachuttes. Evidently, a young woman prisoner - who drowned her three children - escaped and they have been called in to investigate.

I write "evidently" because nothing is as it seems in this picture, but one will get used to that. Treated as intruders by the bellowing guards and like idiots by the high-toned doctors (Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow), the two marshals carry on their investigation, even though a "Jurassic Park"-like hurricane is threatening to overwhelm the entire island.

In the meantime, Teddy is having bizarre hallucinogenic nightmares featuring his wife, Delores (Michelle Williams, Oscar nominee for "Brokeback Mountain"), who perished in a fire set by a guy who is housed in this very facility. In these dreams, Delores keeps trying to give Teddy clues about the film, but he refuses to listen.

He also relates how, as a U.S. soldier liberating one of the Nazi death camps, he and others lined up German soldiers against the wall and machine-gunned them. I'm not sure why these scenes were in the movie, since they had nothing to do with the plot - then again, NOTHING in this movie had ANYTHING to do with the plot.

Teddy even tracks down an old college friend, George Noy (Jackie Earle Haley, Jr., "Little Children"), now housed in the dreaded C Ward; and later meets a facility doctor hiding out in a cave raving about the Cold War, mind-control experiments and brainwashing techniques. But like everything else, these story-lines, too, come to dead ends.

We now not only begin to question Teddy's sanity, but our own as the film takes even more hairpin turns until arriving at the single most disappointing conclusion of any Scorsese film ever made, especially in the light of Teddy's last bold declaration, which I was hoping (against all hope) would rectify and redeem his character, as well as the film.

Fans of the director will no doubt appreciate this effort and I do, too, in some respects. The acting, especially DiCaprio, Williams and Kingsley, are without flaw. The newly-hot Haley, Jr. huff and puffs admirably during his two-minute screen time, Von Sydow is appropriately German and Ruffalo basically reacts to Teddy the entire time.

The cinematography of Robert Richardson ("Inglourious Basterds," "The Aviator," "Kill Bill, Volumes 1 and 2") is always amazing, as well. His gritty, creepy, atmospheric view of the daunting Gothic castle-like structure takes on a life of its own.

It's a shame that Scorsese had to litter it all with dead kids, half-hearted nowhere scenes and incidental characters which turn out to mean absolutely nothing. I'm not an idiot and I don't want my films fed to me like a toddler in a high chair, but it doesn't hurt to walk away from a movie feeling one has gotten SOMETHING out of it.

Is that too much to ask?

Don't miss this one - review from a skeptic.

[bain0038 · 10/10 · 19 February 2010]

From the look of the trailer, Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" looks more like a horror film… This is a dangerous place where isolation rules under fascist control. A U.S Marshall is sent to an asylum to investigate a missing patient but discovers so much more. A demon? A ghost? Something more? Is this going to be as disappointing as I think it is?

I was skeptical walking into the theater, wondering if this twist could hold water. The film starts with Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck, standing on a ferry. They talk about their assignment. What's suspect here is that there is no additional development. We are bam, smack right into the story without so much as an opening montage. All that we see is the men smoking a couple cigarettes. Though this is what begins as momentous development. As our hero smokes we that this isn't the glorified top lit smoking of a beauty or that of a sophisticated and confident gangster. We see that this is a harsher character with poor posture, someone who doesn't sleep well, someone with a deep past…

They are greeted at the gate by guards whose attitudes' seem immediately suspect. Soon we meet Dr Crawley, a seemingly complex and modern man who runs the asylum. However, he soon turns uncooperative with the investigation. Inmates and staff are hiding something but what? Everyone here seems off. Evidence and clues begin to appear but not before our hero seems riddled by psychosis himself. "You act like all this madness is contagious." Daniels says to the guard. Is it? Soon we begin to wonder, too, but not before he uncovers the tip of the iceberg and it's not only painfully intimate with his own past but also a mass conspiracy. The Nazis had concentration camps and the Americans have Shutter Island.

Though, it doesn't stop here, but to say anything else would do the story injustice… Kingsley is in his finest role in years. Similarly, DiCaprio reaches new levels. Amongst others Elias Koteas, Ted Levine, Michelle Williams, all play small but wonderful roles. Robert Richardson captures a world all of its own.

While Scorsese is a master of film I'd say that his specialty has been more character than story. This is a fresh balance of both. It's a mix of noir and thriller. It's only sort of a horror movie and could be compared to "The Shining" but it makes it look like it's a one trick pony.

All this praise being said it's not for everyone. The story is complex. It takes some attention. At times it's a bit bleak and dire. Of course it all makes a little less sense when you actually think about it but then again that's film. There are a couple of moments where the story gets lost within itself. Things become a bit too complicated. At this point you might begin to lose faith in its viscosity, but don't worry because the story has you right where its put you.