To review Shutter Island for an audience that has not yet seen it is no simple task. Stuffed with plot twists and red herrings, the movie is difficult to understand. Lest I reveal too much, let me start with the beginning.
Set in 1953, the movie begins in a deep fog, with U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) on a ferry, crossing over choppy seas from Boston to the eponymous island.
Their task is to investigate the disappearance of an inmate (or patient, depending on who you ask) at the asylum for the criminally insane which is housed on the island. The institution is run by a progressive, goateed psychiatrist (Ben Kingsley) and his less forward-thinking partner (Max Von Sydow, Minority Report), who together comprise an outstanding and, in some cases, humorous duo.
The heavily secured institution is set atop steep foggy cliffs that provide a dramatic setting and stunning views for some of the movie's most suspenseful scenes.
If Daniels' seasickness aboard the ferry doesn't adequately foreshadow the danger ahead, the slow-motion shush gesture from a creepy old lady upon his entrance (which was heavily featured in the trailers) certainly did.
After some puzzling interviews with the inmates and staff, Daniels is positive something is off on the island.
Once a major storm hits, Daniels' sanity, as well as his hope of returning home, begin to dwindle.
In a classic plot move, Daniels and his partner become stuck on the island by a stroke of bad weather only to find strange things going on all around them. The confusion reaches its height when Daniels finds himself in a living nightmare: dressed like an orderly, hallucinating like a patient, stripped of all contact with the outside world.
Adapting Dennis Lehanes' (Mystic River, Gone, Baby, Gone) novel, director Martin Scorsese and cinematographer Robert Richardson (Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill) pull out all the stops to project the confusion inside Daniels' head onto the screen.
Through flashbacks of Daniels' experience as a soldier liberating Nazi death camps, as well as dreams of his dead wife (Michelle Williams) being burned alive, we come to learn that Daniels has experienced a lifetime of trauma.
By minute 60 of 138, Scorsese has inflicted more than enough confusion and puzzlement for one film. Unfortunately, viewers will have to wait another hour - another perplexing, red herring-filled hour - until they have any idea what is going on.
Scorsese tries to include so much in Shutter Island that a second viewing is almost mandatory to fully understand the many layers of the film. As frustrating and incomprehensible as this may make the bulk of the film on first viewing, it makes for a powerful climax that rivals that of any film which comes to mind.
If it weren't for the gifted supporting cast that DiCaprio encounters throughout this psychological thriller, Shutter Island would put many to asleep by the time climax rolls around to unravel the story.
A quartette of scenes with Emily Mortimer (Transsiberian), who plays one incarnation of the missing inmate, the perpetually bone-chilling Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children), Patricia Clarkson (Vicky Christina Barcelona), who plays another version of the missing woman and Ted Levine (Monk) as the philosophical Warden carry the movie through its home stretch and maintain interest despite a labyrinthian plot that is drained of most of its earlier fun.
Through the twists and turns, Scorsese ruminates on some major philosophical issues, including the root of violence, guilt, identity and revenge. At times it seems that Shutter Island is actually a film about the mistreatment of the mentally ill, or perhaps a commentary on torture, both of which turned out to be MacGuffins.
One may not be able to say what the film was "about," but it seems that the last line or two are a good indication - so don't lose focus until the credits roll.
One thing Shutter Island is not, is the supernatural horror flick that the trailers make it out to be. There are one or two scenes that are so terrifying that some may find themselves hiding under their seats. However this film is not about running from some killer on the loose, or escaping the ghosts of dead inmates.
Despite a couple hours of confusing dream sequences and flashbacks, Shutter Island packs a powerful punch when all is said and done that will leave you thinking, yet still satisfied.
