Shutter Island

I came real close to liking Shutter Island. I appreciated its beautiful visuals, it's attention to detail, it's superb performances, and everything else you can expect from a filmmaker like Martin Scorsese. In the end, however, I felt cheated. This is another one of those movies that is less of a movie and more of an overly long episode of "The Twilight Zone." In other words, it's a complete story set up just for one twist. But, in the set up of this we have a very great character study of Ted Daniels, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. We have a story of a man dealing with his own demons, and coming to grips with his past. The problem is, the twist is supposed to be a twist, rather than a plot point. Martin Scorsese missed the chance of life time by keeping the truth of DiCaprio's past until the third act.

Ted Daniels is a Federal Marshall investigating a decidedly "progressive" mental institution, full of all the criminals (or as the Administrators correct him, the patients) no other facility can handle. One particularly dangerous patient has gone missing. The Hospital staff is almost unwilling to help him, and he soon realizes that they do not wish for him to uncover the truth- That there are shocking, horrific experiments being performed on these patients. However, in true M. Night Shylamalan fashion, this all just a set up for a huge plot twist that is apparent to anyone with an IQ over 40 who has seen the trailer. It's not long before a moody and involving psychological thriller becomes "The Village" right before our very eyes.

There is a lot to love in this film, despite being Scorcese's weakest attempt. I expected a series of disjointed images and an extremely nonlinear motif made up to confuse the audience. Instead the story played out, slowly introducing more and more elements into the story ton prepare us for the big reveal. Wait, why prepare us for the big reveal? Aren't we more interested, at this point, about the story they set up so far? Around the corner is a story that is just as interesting. Unfortunately, its simply one act of the film. When that happens, our original story is left in the dust. So we are left with two halves, both good, but yearning to be something more.

In 2001, I was "A Beautiful Mind", about Mathematician John Nash, who suffers from various illnesses that force him to see these elaborate visions. This is disguised, quite well, for the first portion of the movie. We learn about his delusions before he does. Anyone who knew anything about the person before seeing the movie knew from the beginning, and that did nothing but enrich the film. It's a sad day when Martin Scorsese should be taking notes from the director of "The Grinch."


** out of ****