SHUTTER ISLAND 3.0**** out of 4****
Shutter Island is Martin Scorsese’s newest film. It was four months late in being released so as to retune it some. Apparently they did a fairly good job as this is a very captivating movie… it is part drama, part thriller and part horror. Regardless as to what it is, Shutter Island is one worth seeing as it is a remarkable “departure” by Scorsese from his usual type of movie to his first real turn at themes, particularly psychological themes, so brilliantly presented by Hitchcock ( “Psycho”, “North by Northwest”, etc), Stanley Kubrick ( “The Shining”) and M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense”)… Scorsese has learned well from these creative directors and it’s reflected in “Shutter Island”

“Shutter Island” is a difficult film to review. The way the film unfolds with its many twists and turns, it makes it difficult to explain without spoiling the suspense and especially the ending…so I’ll be careful to not give anything away. The movie takes you down so many different paths that guessing how the film will end is nearly impossible. Watching the film is a real challenge because you’re not sure what is real and what is not….is it a flashback or is it a hallucination? You must don your thinking cap at the very beginning to keep up with this movie…it’s a mindbender and if you’re not up for the mental effort required to enjoy it, then I suggest you go see something less cerebral such as “The Tooth Fairy”.

Shutter Island is the story of Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), two U.S. Marshals who, in 1954, are sent to Ashecliffe Hospital, the federal maximum security hospital for the criminally insane located on Shutter Island where a patient has somehow escaped. Once on the island, they find that the hospital and prison staffs aren't very forthcoming with their investigation. It seems that the staff is hiding a big secret. Teddy and Chuck are seen as nuisances at best, intruders at worst: they're met with a lack of a cooperation bordering on outright hostility. They are forced to surrender their firearms, and have trouble getting a straight answer out of anyone. What's also clear is that Teddy isn't that stable himself: he's haunted by dreams of his WWII Dachau experience and the death of his wife Dolores (Michelle Williams) and their children , as well as being prone to migraines and horrifying hallucinations. And it also soon becomes clear that Teddy has come to island with his own agenda…he’s determined to "blow the lid off" what he believes to be the illegal and horrifying things being done at Shutter Island in the disguise of medicine..

The cast is full of heavyweights–everyone from DiCaprio and Ruffalo to Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, and Patricia Clarkson--–all of whom give solid and even memorable performances. DiCaprio is stunning as Teddy, delivering a memorizing timeless performance that at times is reminiscent of Bogart or Nicholson, but yet he always remains a true DiCaprio and makes the emotional scenes between Teddy and his deceased wife all the more believable and heartbreaking.

Shutter Island looks just how it feels: dark, haunting, eerily beautiful and very forbidding.

NOTE: It has an “R” rating mostly because of the language…several F bombs but not nearly as many in other Scorsese movies..also some disturbing and graphic scenes of people and places.



FOOTNOTE: After you’ve seen the movie you may wonder, as I did, how they found such a perfect location as Shutter island to shot the film. Well, that’s where Hollywood magic comes in : Shutter Island was “created” by taking scenery from Peddocks Island (initial island approach), Acadia National Park in Maine (MA), Medfield State Hospital in Medfield, MA, and the Rice Estate at Turner Hill Country Club in Ipswich, MA…all of which were combined via CGI to create the imagery of Shutter Island .The large mountainous area of the island seen during the ferry approach and during the storm sequence was added in post-production and does not exist, but the decaying brick buildings on the lowlands are real ruins from Peddocks Island.