A Thomas Bess review of:
Directed By: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Max Con Sydow, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Ted Levine, Jackie Earle Haley, Elias Koteas
Run Time: 138 minutes spent trying to decide if I shouldn’t have read the book before seeing the movie.
When I’m writing my reviews, I try to avoid coming right out and saying, “this is a bad movie” or “this is a good movie”. I’m much more of the “if you like these particular elements in another movie, then you’ll probably like this one” because it seems rather less authoritarian and really, who am I to tell you where to spend your money? Trying to fashion a review for Shutter Island using that approach is going to prove very difficult, because I’m willing to bet good money that your enjoyment or disgust of this flick will hinge entirely on a third act revelation that can absolutely not be discussed without spoiling the whole story. But what about the stuff that doesn’t require a Spoiler Horn? Good, bad, middling? Well, lets see…
The plot (for those of you who haven’t been seeing the trailer for what seems like a year) goes a little something like this. It’s 1954 and US Marshall Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) is working with new partner Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) to solve the disappearance of one Rachel Solando (Mortimer), a patient at a gloomy mental facility on the titular island. They are greeted, aided and often impeded by the staff, most notably Doctors Cawley and Naehring (Kingsley and Von Sydow respectively). It’s made clear from the outset that something odd is going on at the hospital and even after Rachel turns up safe and sound, Daniels and Aule keep combing the island in hopes of trying to solve the mystery without going batshit crazy themselves. Along the way Teddy will endure a hurricane, meet some of the island’s more frightening patients (Haley and Koteas) have disturbing dreams involving his dead wife (Williams) and generally wonder what the hell is going on, a sentiment that will surely be echoed by the audience a few times throughout.
First the good. The cast of this film is just phenomenal. DiCaprio does a lot of the heavy lifting of course and handles it well, but he’s aided by excellent performances from pretty much everyone else. Kingsley and Von Sydow pull off the sinister, secretive doctor shtick without resorting to insane cackles or megalomaniacal dialogues while Levine (seen all too briefly, I’m afraid) gets to revel in that sort of threatening violence, albeit in a rather matter of fact way that makes it all the more chilling. Haley and Koteas are appropriately disturbing in their brief turns as patients, but when it comes to out and out creeps, Michelle Williams manages to outdo them both and everyone else for that matter. Certainly didn’t see that coming when she was doing Dawson’s Creek back in the day. Cinematography’s gorgeous too — there are sweeping views of the facility buildings and craggy cliffs interspersed with claustrophobic shots of dank tunnels, crypts, etc. It really makes Shutter Island a separate character, the world’s biggest haunted house with mysteries and weirdness around every corner. Oh, and while I’m sure very few would come to this flick strictly for effects, you are treated to some pretty gruesome stuff during the dream / hallucination sequences that’ll stick with you for some time after the camera’s moved on to a more prosaic subject matter.
And now that bad (Or at least, things that will annoy certain viewers). First up, this is one meticulously paced film, which is a nice way of saying that it can be really slow at times. The same criticism could be leveled at the recently reviewed The House of the Devil, but that sucker was only an hour and a half, whereas you’ll be trapped on Shutter Island for almost two and half. While it never gets truly boring, there are several scenes where I wanted to tell Teddy to pick up the frikkin’ pace, especially if this investigation is so damned important to him. And while it should be noted that his character develops into someone more interesting later in the story, for the first half of this movie I’d swear ninety-five percent of Mark Ruffalo’s lines were “You okay, boss?” or some slight variation thereof. It could definitely be the basis of a drinking game, were you so inclined. On the auditory front, I may be alone in this, but the score seemed to switch between unmemorable and grating in the blink of an eye, especially when something terrible was going or about to happen. There’s a sort of pounding DUN, DUN, DUN, DUN! riff that plays over and over throughout, which is a problem considering that by the first time it stopped I was like “We get it, it’s ominous!”
Should you see it? Man, I really don’t know. If you’re going solely by what you’ve seen in the trailer, be warned because it’s not nearly as fast-paced as that would have you believe. If you’re a fan of Scorsese, anyone in the cast or the source material, I think you’ll find plenty to enjoy, BUT if you’ve pinned your hopes on the story itself, it might be best to read the novel first, then if you liked it, take a trip to the island when it hits disc somewhere down the line.
Using the hurricane scale, category 1 being a little rain and category 5 being the finger of God, I’d say Shutter Island is a category 3, with all those points being generated by the force of the assembled cast and some haunting visuals.
Til next time, always remember that the calls are coming from inside the house.
Tom Bess recently shaved his legendary sideburns at a cost of two hours and five pounds. The end result is a slightly puffier, but much more aerodynamic movie-reviewing machine who is still patiently waiting for Allison Mack to return his calls. While he’s waiting, he’ll read copious amounts of Lovecraft and eat too many Peach Gummy Bears.
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