05 Mar 2010, Posted by Alex Shofner in Articles,Film Reviews,Reviews, 0 Comments

Shutter Island Review

Martin Scorsese released a new movie recently. You may have heard of it. Leo’s in it. It’s called Shutter Island, and if you’ve seen the preview you can probably guess the ending. Leonardo DiCaprio, who has managed to overcome his teen heartthrob reputation circa Titanic with a series of impressive performances, plays Teddy Daniels (or does he?), a U.S. Marshal investigating the disappearance of an insane murderer from an asylum whose location puts Alcatraz to shame. It’s on an island in the middle of the open ocean somewhere off the East Coast and is run by Gandhi himself, Ben Kingsley.

As Teddy digs deeper and deeper into the disappearance, he uncovers a vast plot involving Nazi-related human experiments, mind control, and all sorts of juicy conspiracy theories. Mark Ruffalo plays Chuck, Teddy’s new partner. The two have a series of misadventures and creepy experiences with crazy people as they delve into the mysteries of the madhouse. The intensity builds into such a frenzy that the ending is a complete letdown. Here it is, and I’ll throw in a big fat spoiler warning, the M. Night Shyamalan twist is: Leo’s crazy, and has been all along. It turns out that it was one giant experiment to see if Leo would be able to come to grips with his long past crime of killing his wife. Ben Kingsley has given Leo the run of the island to play out his fantasy in one huge Live Action Roleplay. And this is a total invalidation of the plot.

This ending has a few effects. The first is that it means that none of the plot points the audience has seen have to make any sense at all, because it’s all in Leo’s head. This makes the writer’s job much easier, no loose ends to tie up. This sort of twist, which I put into the category of “dream sequence”, is infuriating. It’s cheap. It means the director can do whatever he wants because he is pulling the wool over the audience’s eyes the entire film. I hate it. Every time there is a dreamlike sequence in a movie (i.e. something that doesn’t actually happen, and is just put there to trick the audience into thinking it happened) I want to bang my head against the wall.

Many people would say that the ending doesn’t matter, it’s the journey that’s important. You know the guy will end up with the girl at the end of a romantic comedy, and you know the good guy will kill the bad guy at the end of the shoot-em-up. And they are right, to a degree. But when it comes to thrillers and mysteries, where the whole movie builds up to the final reveal, the ending matters a great deal. And when the ending is something that you can call from watching the trailer once, it just doesn’t cut it.

If we look past the last fifteen minutes, I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the film. The first ninety percent of it was fantastic. Scorsese executes the thriller/horror genre to a T, and none of the performances were phoned in. The cinematography is well framed to elicit a constantly foreboding tone. Though it is relatively low-action and turns in at almost two and a half hours, I was on the edge of my seat for the majority of the time. There is a particularly moving sequence involving flashbacks of Leo’s experience invading a Nazi death camp.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience, even if I left with a sour taste. I probably won’t be watching this movie again, but maybe you should try it out. If it helps, I enjoyed this more than The Departed, but for anyone that’s talked to me about that movie, that doesn’t say a great deal. Don’t get me wrong, I love Scorsese. Some of his movies rank among my favorites ever. Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas? All spectacular. But his recent slate disappoints me. I’ll be watching whatever he does next, though, always looking for another film to place among his best.

ShofScore: 6.5/10

– Alex Shofner