Reviewed By: Riley Beam

“Remember us - for we too have lived, loved and laughed.”

 As a plaque in front of the asylum suggests, Shutter Island is not the same world we live in, although there are remnants of it that continue to float around. The experience created by Martin Scorsese in his latest film is one that tests the audience's detective skills and sanity.  But the real fun doesn't begin until after the credits roll and one questions what actually just happened.

Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule are U.S. Marshalls assigned to investigate a missing patient at Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The hospital is located on Shutter Island, a solitary locale where rumor has it, there is no way off the island. Ben Kingsley plays the lead psychiatrist with a smile that can't be trusted, and he does his best to divert Teddy and Chuck's investigation. During the search, Teddy struggles with his past life, haunted by the death of his wife and the story of the missing patient.  This leads Teddy down a dangerous path where, like every other mystery movie ever made, nothing is what it seems and no one can be trusted.

Shutter Island takes place in the 1950's, when psychiatry tiptoed the line of barbaric and cutting-edge, and a doctor's work was all experimental; which sounds a lot like modern day psychiatry. Adding further depth to the complicated plot are themes relating to the Holocaust, life in the 1950's, and a bad, bad storm.  If not for these intertwined story-lines Scorsese's film would have just been a run of the mill thriller.

Despite what some may think of the plot and dialogue, the imagery is really what makes Shutter Island stand out.  Water, fire, blood, wind, and ice all float across the screen to create dramatic shots that remain imprinted in the mind well past the end of the movie. Graphic dream-like depictions of violence, death, and the Holocaust make it impossible not to forget Teddy Daniel's struggle.

The cast features a nice mix of stars and character actors. Leonardo DiCaprio, his wrinkled brow, and tough accent joined for an excellent depiction of Teddy Daniels, except he looks about ten years too young to be playing a hardened detective and war veteran.  DiCaprio shines during an interrogation scene which rattles the mind of not only the patient in the asylum, but of the audience as well.  Mark Ruffalo can always be counted on to deliver as the trusty sidekick with a hard exterior and a loyal heart.  Ben Kingsley (who also played a psychiatrist in The Wackness) gets the job done  as the untrustworthy Dr. Cawley, but is a little over-the-top when it comes to his sketchiness. Also, if Jack Earle Haley (who plays Rorschach in Watchmen and a creepy pedophile in Little Children) were to play a crazy person in every movie until he dies, that would be perfectly fine. No role was so perfectly fit for an actor in Shutter Island as Jack Earle Haley's depiction of asylum patient George Noyse.  The rest of the cast plays minimal roles, as the subservient nurses and orderlies are almost indistinguishable in their attire and the prison guards with faces like bulldogs were almost like mannequins in a store for crazy people. They looked the same and acted like they were all hooked up to some kind of brain that ran the hospital. Scorsese is usually a master at using characters to tell the story, but in Shutter Islandthe characters are just pawns of the story and lack the significance they have in his past films.

What Shutter Island ultimately comes down to is how one perceives the ending. It is possible to leave the theater angry, confused, or ranting that it was brilliant. Whatever the opinion, the film is extremely thought-provoking, and will leave you scouring the IMDB message boards for closure. Take the last one-third of the movie out, and Shutter Island delivers with an intricate plot, suspenseful and exciting build-up, solid acting, and stunning visual artistry. The ending of Shutter Island leaves it up to the viewer to determine if they are truly convinced with what they are handed and how the rest of the film fits in.  As a psychological thriller, it is easy to get caught up in how it ends, but to narrow it down to that would be doing Shutter Island a great injustice.

Shutter Island is worth the walk along the cliff's edge of sanity, but fails to reach the level of a Scorsese “classic."

7.5