SHUTTER ISLAND

Director: Martin Scorsese
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams
Year: 2010
Rating: R

Though dated 8 June, I'm actually writing this review four days later - on the 12th of June, with this film still playing at the corners of my mind. I was disappointed with the last Scorsese film I saw (The Departed, reviewed here), though impressed with the performance of Leonardo DiCaprio (one of the most underrated actors working right now) in the film. Here, director and actor team up again for a haunting psychological thriller that echoes some great Hitchcockian moments - and has an ending even the most jaded viewer might not see coming (indeed, the last line of dialogue in the film, alone, may quite possibly knock you on your ass).

The setting is the islands off Boston Harbor, 1954. DiCaprio stars as Teddy Daniels, a federal U.S. Marshall taking the ferry over to Shutter Island along with his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), to investigate the escape/disappearance of a patient from the prison for the criminally insane housed there. From the opening scene, of a seasick Teddy hanging his sweaty head over a sink, trying to get his stomach back under control, we learn that Teddy Daniels is a flawed man, haunted by both his time in spent with the military during World War II, breaking up concentration camps ... to the death of his wife Dolores a couple years earlier. As the ferry approaches Shutter Island, a storm fast approaching on the water, Scorsese makes sure the island is shrouded in darkness and menace, the musical score playing over Daniels and Aule's view of the island creeping you out before the men even get there, portents of some really evil stuff ahead.

The marshalls are dropped off on the island, where they meet up with ultra-tight security in the form of armed police guards who seem almost too jittery and nervous for their own good, as if the slightest movement could cause their already-itchy trigger fingers to go off. Teddy and Chuck are immediately forced to give up their weapons before they can even enter the facility, and their sense of being out of control of the situation - even though they are U.S. marshalls with supposed authority over the investigation - is further heightened when the two meet Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), who overseas the facility that houses the most dangerous, mentally unstable criminals in the country. Cawley, though professing an eagerness to help, instantly clashes with Daniels, in particular over granting the marshalls access to employees records so they can better conduct their investigation. Max von Sydow, as Dr. Naehring, does his sinister best as Cawley's superior - the man who refuses Daniels accent, even as Teddy spots the doctor's slight German accent right off, impacting him with more reminders of his haunting time at Dachau.

In fact, as we learn more of Teddy's back-story - via flashbacks, as well as with visions Teddy starts having of his dead wife (Michelle Williams), who was burned to death in their apartment building by an arsonist currently locked up on Shutter Island - viewers learn there are hidden connections to the marshall and why he's at the prison. And as Teddy starts to uncover clues to a conspiracy, as well as to what the missing/escaped patient may have learned before she disappeared, the young federal marshall realizes that perhaps he and Chuck are in more danger than they ever could have realized ... and that neither of them may ever be allowed to leave Shutter Island alive.

The film, populated with some brilliant character actors in supporting roles (John Carroll Lynch as the menacing deputy warden and Ted Levine as the warden who virtually has "Nazi" written all over him, as well as Jackie Earle Haley and Elias Koteas as Shutter Island inmates/patients), is moody, suspenseful as hell, and with more twists and turns than a roller coaster, all of which may at times leave viewers a bit confused ... though it all comes together in the end.

That's as much as can be said without giving away anything else, possibly spoiling the film. But Shutter Island, in its way, is a masterpiece of quiet suspense, where gore and chase scenes and action sequences normally found in this kind of film instead make way for the taut, psychological suspense that not only keeps you glued to the screen ... but also stays with you for a long time afterward.

The ending itself comes as a pretty good jolt to the system; I didn't see it coming, and the script really plays things out in an intelligent way that both clears up confusion and gives both a richness and strength to both the characters and story. And again, even the last line of the dialogue in the film, if you're paying attention, should have any viewer watching whispering "oh WOW" under their breath, at the very least.

I loved Shutter Island. It doesn't feel much like a Scorsese film in the usual sense of his work, but the master's touches are there - and the film is brilliantly executed, capped by a great performance by DiCaprio and cinematography that keeps you in the ominous, "something is very wrong here" mindset for the entire ride. A true psychological thriller for 2010, with its feel of 1950's post-war paranoia firmly in place. Wonderfully addictive and worth repeated viewings, this is a film that works on many levels and will stay with the mind long after the end credits roll. ****1/2 - Reel Awesome-Reel Must-See