LEONARDO DICAPRIO and Martin Scorcese have collaborated in Oscar-nominated films like "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator" and the Oscar-winning "The Departed". They're now together again in "Shutter Island", a suspense thriller based on a novel by Dennis Lehane ("Mystic River", "Gone Baby Gone"). Leo is Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Federal Marshall sent to Shutter Island, a mental asylum cum prison in the seas off Boston in 1954.
He and his new partner, Chuck (Mark Ruffalo), are to investigate the disappearance of a patient, Rachel Solando, a woman who drowned her own three children then escaped from her cell mysteriously. "It's as if she evaporated straight to the walls," says the hospital chief, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley, who seems ready to assist them and also to prevent them from finding the truth.
A hurricane hits the island and Teddy is forced to stay on it. With nowhere to go, he tries to figure out further what's going on, including what secret operations are going inside a forbidding lighthouse. The longer he stays stuck on the island, the more Teddy doubts the facts of the case, starts having migraines, and also questions his hold on his own sanity. He keeps having visions of his wife Dolores (Michelle Williams) who was killed in an apartment fire and seems to be linked to the island.
The trouble with "Shutter Island" is that you've seen so many other flicks with insane characters like this. The lead character questions his sanity, who they can trust, etc. etc. Is he losing his mind? After the first 10 or 15 minutes, you'd already predict where the movie is going, just pay attention to the clues. The rest is a boring two hours of waiting for you to prove that your guess is correct. We're hoping to expect a powerhouse punch still to come from Scorcese, but alas, he's no Hitchcock in "Spellbound" or Kubrick in "The Shining".
Scorcese has done a lot of good films like "Raging Bull", "Taxi Driver", "Goodfellas" and "Casino", so what happened here? Why choose a material that's been done several times before? At film's end, all the pieces of the puzzle are supplied and there's nothing for you to question as all the details are explained to you to make sure you don't leave the theatre not confused about anything. But you can leave your brain at theater door and still figure out what's happening because of all the clues that are so easy to decipher as they're all part of the conventions of the genre, including the dark stormy nights, downed phone lines, scary looking inmates who suddenly materialize in dimly light corridors, etc., etc.
The only effective scenes here are the flashback scenes showing Teddy as a soldier in a prison camp in Dachau during World War II . The long tracking sequence showing American soldiers shooting German prisoners of war is pure Scorcese.
We were excited to see this latest film of a master filmmaker but got so disappointed to discover it's a tedious letdown. Even "Gothika" with Halle Berry was a bit more thrilling than this. In all fairness, the acting is generally fine, with Leo once again sporting a Boston accent that skips the R's. Giving good support are Emily Mortimer as the missing inmate, and Max Von Sydow and Ben Kingsley as the sinister doctors. The production design and cinematography are all terrific in establishing foreboding mood and atmosphere, but they're not enough to prevent the film from dragging needlessly.
