Movie Review - Shutter Island

Shutter Island

I was so damn excited to see this movie. Like, so excited that, when the previews cut out, I felt myself become weak in the knees, giddy with excitement, eyes and ears trained on the screen at all times. Perhaps I psyched myself up so far that no matter what Shutter Island bestowed on me, it could never reach my limitless expectations.

That's not to say that Shutter Island totally failed to intrigue and immerse me after the first few minutes of the film. Nay, in reality, Martin Scorsese had already sucked me in as Leonardo DiCaprio and company round the bend of Shutter Island, complete with violin swells and a gigantic, darkly sweeping score, to find the ominous (and looming) Ashcliffe Hospital. And yet, being so enthralled with the opening, I found myself being consistently let down with each passing moment until the end. Let me explain.

DiCaprio holds the film pretty well playing Teddy Daniels - a gruff, effective federal investigator with a conscience-ridden background - and he pulls off the 50's trenchcoat-wearing detective persona just fine. Mark Ruffalo's pretty solid as well as Daniels' partner Chuck Aule, although he is obviously overshadowed by DiCaprio due mainly to the central focus on Daniels. Daniels and Aule are sent to Shutter Island to apprehend a missing mental patient, who has seemingly disappeared without a trace. In their stay on the island, Daniels and Aule uncover disturbing facts about the facility, with Daniels having other motives besides the exterior excuses he gives.

Scorsese intersperses Daniels' backstory with ongoing plot developments, a nice approach to characterization that will ultimately come back with a vengeance for the viewer later on in the film's twist. It's also done with a style and beauty, through dream-like fugues, that attract the viewer more than a straight-forward flashback would.

The same can be said for the majority of the atmosphere in Shutter Island - Scorsese highlights just how gigantic Shutter Island can be, not just limiting the plot in different parts of the prison but venturing around the lush landscapes of the entire island. As DiCaprio exposes the hidden secrets of the island, so to do we, taking it in with surprise, awe, and an almost voracious appetite.

But as the movie progresses, it becomes more apparent that Scorsese is, perhaps partly in homage, using generic and stereotypical scenarios to terrify the viewer. The venture into the supposedly ghastly Ward C of Shutter Island is mostly what comes to mind here. This block of the mental institution is dedicated to housing the most violent and dangerous of patients, and of course, Daniels and Aule must enter this abyss to discover the truth of Shutter Island. Scorsese's depiction of the ward is dark and dreary, with leaky ceilings, endlessly winding staircases, and dank cells teeming with wandering dangerous individuals. We hear howls, moans, and other spooky sounds as DiCaprio cautiously makes his way through the ward, and the gloomy mood of Daniels is contagious. Yet Scorsese makes little use of the atmosphere he presents, utilizing obvious, hardly spooky "boo" scares to startle the viewer. I don't want to say that it's totally ineffective, because Scorsese does a great job of creating the tension. It's just that, when it comes to making something happen, a disappointing arm-grab or pop-out moment is a real downer. Like I said, maybe it's an homage to old classics with a similar plot. But it just didn't work well.

Another key gimmick that Scorsese uses is exposition dumps. When one really gets down to it, most of the important information in the film is not shown, but told through overly long dialogue encounters between Daniels and other people on the island. At first, it makes sense - Daniels is an investigator, and most of the information he gets should be gleamed from others. But a hefty chunk of the film is devoted solely to characters telling Daniels information. We don't see the more interesting bits; we don't get the action. All we have are people who dump loads of info on us all out once, and it feels like we're a bit cheated.

Without trying to give too much of the film's final twist away, the ending of Shutter Island left a bad taste in my mouth. I had uncovered almost too much of the twist well before we were told (without reading the book), and maybe this is where that sense of expectation comes in. I expected there to be more to it than what there was, especially when the ending was apparent to me much earlier. The film attempts to make the audience believe one theory over another, as well, and this not only didn't do the film any favors, it also left me slightly pissed off. Don't tell me what to think - let me think it on my own. An ambiguous ending is better than being given a solution. If you haven't seen the movie, this might not make a lot of sense, but in attempts to not give away the ending, I have to be somewhat careful with my words.

One must admit, at the finale the film feels much less original than originally expected. It's been done before - for argument's sake, probably not as good as Scorsese does it in Shutter Island. If you can appreciate the film in this respect, it really is a fairly good movie, and left me pretty riveted throughout. It's when you stop to think of what could have been done, what tension was created and the generic ways it was utilized, that Shutter Island becomes a fine, but not fantastic, film.

Shutter Island on Rotten Tomatoes