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Shutter Island - movie review…
This week, Faith Brotherston and Andrew Sheldrick review Martin Scorsese thriller Shutter Island.
It’s 1954 and US Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo Di Caprio) is called to eerie Shutter Island, a secure institution for the criminally insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. He finds his efforts hampered by nightmares, hallucinations and the generally unhelpful and obstructive behaviour of Dr Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and Dr Naehring (Max von Sydow). And is his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), all he’s cracked up to be?
Faith says:
I didn’t want to watch this. The trailer freaked me out and I had it in my head that it’d be a horror filled with terrifying scenes that would see me leap around and drop my Minstrels. But as it turned out, Shutter Island was a chilling thriller where the fear factor came from your own sense of anticipation rather than gruesome goings on (although there were some pretty graphic scenes that I found distressing. But I am a wimp.)
Leonardo Di Caprio put in a convincing and sensitive performance of the tortured marshall Daniels, and the menacing supporting cast of Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow certainly made for compelling edge-of-your-seat viewing. Add to that Michelle Williams popping up in some disturbing hallucinations, and the film did a great job of drawing me in and willing Daniels to get on with it and get off the island PDQ.
That is, until Scorsese started messing with my head. I was quite content working out where it was all going to lead and wondering if he’d manage to banish his demons along with his case, when Scorsese brought in his twist, which was all very clever I’m sure. Evidently it did the job – I could hear couples bickering all the way to the car park about ‘what really happened’. But I like my criminal cases open and shut, thanks.
Andrew says:
For all the obvious plaudits thrust upon Martin Scorsese, it could be argued that his greatest achievement is his ability to effortlessly flit between genres. Think of the definitive gangster flick, sports movie or loincloth epic and Goodfellas, Raging Bull and the Last Temptation of Christ all readily spring to mind. With Shutter Island, Scorsese can now tick horror off his to-do-list.
Shutter Island is one of those films that the less you know, the greater the payoff, which could admittedly make writing this review somewhat problematic. If you’ve not yet seen the trailer, don’t seek it out, because as with so many recent trailers it seems there’s an increasing trend to compress the whole film into three minutes rather than simply whet your appetite.
So what can you expect from Shutter Island without venturing into spoiler territory? Well as it’s a Scorsese film a great ensemble cast is a given. Marty’s current muse DiCaprio (his fourth successive collaboration) plays it initially low key and close to the heart, allowing Sir Ben Kingsley and genre favourite Max von Sydow to steal the show in their respective roles as doctors of differing ethical viewpoints. Further praise goes to Jackie Earle Haley hamming it up brilliantly as a deranged patient, which bodes well for his upcoming role as Freddy Krueger 2.0.
As you’d expect the film features all of the usual Scorsese visual flourishes; freeze frames, jump-cuts and extravagant tracking shots are all present and correct. Shutter Island’s score also deserves special mention and stands out as one of the most ominous I’ve heard since ironically Cape Fear, which in many respects is tonally the closest film from Scorsese’s back catalogue that Shutter Island resembles .
I’ll stop there lest anything be given away, but to summarise – like many of the island’s patients, you’d be mad to miss this one.
Next week: well when Faith and Andrew have stopped discussing Shutter Island they’ll let us know … keep popping back!
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Name: Faith Brotherston
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