Shutter Island

By Anthony Morrow

Director Martin Scorsese has made a dark and thought provoking film that entertains and will make the audience think through every dark twist and turn.  Unfortunately it left this reviewer dissatisfied with the feeling the film should have been more of a traditional suspense film. It has moments that will surprise and catch the audience off guard but it played too much to genres and not enough to the dark vision it could have been.

It’s 1954, the heart of the Cold War, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner (Mark Ruffalo) are assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston’s Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane. One of the facility’s most notorious and freeakiest patients, a young mother who drowned her three children, has somehow vanished from a locked room. Teddy has been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons but before long he wonders whether he hasn’t been brought there as part of a sinister plot by the hospital doctor. But there are deeper mysteries here, memories of Nazi death camps linger and rumors of questionable scientific experiments by the asylum’s doctors are circulating.

Teddy’s investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. He is haunted by the memories of the Dachau concentration camp (which he helped liberate) and one about his slain wife (Michelle Williams), who urges him to quit. Adding to his problems a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, dangerous criminals “escape” in the confusion, and the startling, and un logical clues increase, Teddy begins to doubt everything his routine, his memory, even his own sanity.

The film had so much promise based on the hype and trailers but it fails to live up to that bill. This film is not for thrill seekers looking for a seat gripping thriller but more so for the suspense loving thinker.

Popularity: 1% [?]