Review: SHUTTER ISLAND

It’s difficult to talk about a film like SHUTTER ISLAND in any great length, because, for the most part, the film works masterfully.  Martin Scorsese has all the talent of a legend, and he handily creates the mood and the setting of a mental institution housed on a remote island in the paranoid days of the ’50s, a time where the US was trying to move on from World War II despite that Communist nuisance brewing seemingly in our own back yard.

The direction of SHUTTER ISLAND, to say the very least, isn’t the problem with the film.  The problem comes with initial concept crafted by Dennis Lehane.  Published in 2003, it tells the story of a US Marshall, Teddy Daniels, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the new film, who is brought to said remote island and said mental institution to investigate a disappearance.  A female patient, one who murdered her children, has vanished from her room.  The doctors and orderlies are perplexed, and it is up to the Marshall, along with his new partner, played in the film by Mark Ruffalo, to uncover the mystery of her disappearance.

The issues don’t come from paranoia or from the secondary characters who, for the most part, are more interesting than the lead character.  The issues come directly from that lead character, and the big twist that comes at the end of the story.  I haven’t read Lehane’s novel, so I am unsure from the way his story plays out how easily one can sort out the details of the revolution the story is building towards.  It certainly is right in your face from the get go with Laeta Kalogridis’ screenplay.

It is here that I warn you potential spoilers may come out.  I will try my best to reveal as little as possible, but, when you’re dealing with a film like SHUTTER ISLAND which is so dependent on the effectiveness of its ending, it is difficult to analyze the film without delving into how successful the climax plays out.  Simply put, it doesn’t play out very well here at all, and that is because anyone who is paying attention knows full well where SHUTTER ISLAND is going long before the last half of the movie even begins.

When we first meet Teddy Daniels in the film, he is in a ferry’s bathroom, puking his guts out and generally trying to keep himself from freaking out.  It is here that anyone familiar with cinema history will give a slight grin at the thought of Leo DiCaprio freaking out on a ship.  He has good reason.  But, after thinking back to James Cameron days of old, we begin analyzing the character.  There is something not right with Teddy, something we either can’t put our finger on or we slam that finger precisely down on the exact issue that is plaguing him.

It’s really in the things we don’t see.  At the beginning of the film, Teddy has a bandage over his left eye, something that is never pointed to.  He seems to have lost his cigarettes.  These are minor plot points that really should have no bearing on what is going on, and, under the coordination of a better screenwriter, that is precisely how we would handle them.  For some reason, though, Kalogridis’ screenplay seems built on these little moments and character points.  A few grains of sand don’t make much of a difference but a whole wall of sand can strip flesh from the bone if you follow my meaning.

It is really a shame, too, because the screenplay and the story, the inevitable outcome of all SHUTTER ISLAND is building towards, seems to overshadow the fact that it is a really well crafted motion picture.  Despite not feeling like a Scorsese picture at all (there is only one well done tracking shot that screams Scorsese, and it comes during a flashback to World War II, at that), the film looks marvelous.  The cinematography from Robert Richards (THE AVIATOR and INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS) and the editing from long-time Scorsese collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker are marvelous.  So, too, is Scorsese’s choice in music here.  With help from music supervisor Robbie Robertson, the film’s score is made up of all found music, music that plays like some of the most effective and stylishly atmospheric scores from horror films past.

It is the music that tells you SHUTTER ISLAND plays like a horror film, but it is Scorsese’s eye and love for the genre that shows you just how close to breaching that genre wall the film truly is.  Scorsese is, like me, a lover of the Val Lewton produced horror films of the ’40s, and this is seen in ever frame of every scene in SHUTTER ISLAND.  It would almost be worth it to see the film in black and white if it weren’t for the vibrancy and beauty of some of Richards’ shots.

Of course, a Scorsese film wouldn’t be a Scorsese film without the way he pulls performances from his actors, and SHUTTER ISLAND provides a cavalcade of talent who are all working at the top of their game.  Leading the pack of notable actors is DiCaprio who has, thankfully, long since left the debate of whether he was an actor or a movie star in the dust.  The man turns on the paranoia and emotional levels up so high with his performance here, he all but erases from your mind just how tired you are of hearing him sport a New England accent.  Other worthwhile turns come from Ruffalo, Max Von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Jackie Earle Haley, Patricia Clarkson, and Ben Kingsley, who always has a way of turning in charming yet villainous performances without effort.

In the end, though, the film has a trajectory and it is headed in only one direction.  Unfortunately, that direction is easy to grab hold of, and very little in the rest of the film seems to matter once you know precisely where it’s headed.  It’s not an aspect of the film that should damn or bless it as a whole, and the other aspects, the things that are done picture perfectly, have a way of shining through to the very end.

Scorsese has made his horror film here, and, for better or for worse, films that fall into this genre have a way of being less than they ought to be.  They are mostly viewed as entertainment fodder that has very little in the way of cinematic quality.  It’s not going to help the case of the horror aficionado that Scorsese’s endeavor into the genre will more than likely be viewed as one of his lesser achievements as a film maker, that it is a disappointment to say the very least.  And that, SHUTTER ISLAND is.  It is a very atmospheric and convincing look into the world of mad men and the nudges it takes for one to go completely insane.  However, it never quite seems to hit the mark as well as previous Scorsese films.  Much of that has to do with the screenplay but not all of it.  It is safe to say, though, that a Scorsese disappointment is still commendable on so many levels, and SHUTTER ISLAND is well worth visiting even if only once and even if for a brief time.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars