Shutter makes my heart flutter

Scorsese’s stab at film noir draws first blood

By Alex Mugford

Shutter Island Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, and Max Von Sydow Paramount 138 mins Rated 14A

One of the most influential living American directors, Martin Scorsese has returned with the psychological film noir thriller Shutter Island. U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and his partner, Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) have been summoned to Ashecliffe Hospital, a criminal sanatorium. Teddy is investigating the bizarre disappearance of a patient who is institutionalized for having killed her children. However, Dr. Cawley (Kingsley) isn’t making it easy. Teddy’s restricted access to the facility and personnel files has Teddy on edge. The walls of the institution hint at human experiments. He relentlessly investigates the hospital but a hurricane prevents his escape.
Taking a break from mob flicks and biopics, Scorsese has regressed back to creating a thriller reminiscent of 1991’s Cape Fear. Scorsese got his start making B-grade films for Roger Corman such as 1972’s Boxcar Bertha. From the first frame of the film, the soundtrack creates a restless tension in your mind. The patients look aptly psychotic and smile insanely as Teddy is led into the facility. Shutter Island is more hallucinogenic than Scorsese’s previous films, and yet he has now mastered the German Expressionism-inspired Film Noir genre. It will enthral and amaze you, and draw you in like a Ghostbusters ghost trap. The frights don’t come from the guy hiding in the dark ready to jump out and scare you, but from what he has to say. “You’re a rat in a maze,” one murderer says to Teddy. That is horror on a mental level. Teddy is an astonishingly deep character with a tragic past that literally keeps coming back to haunt him. The abrupt cuts, lighting, and other classic film noir techniques are used in full force during these psychedelic sequences which are all extremely enjoyable and insanely interesting. It’s what suspense master Alfred Hitchcock did in Vertigo (1958) and also what Stanley Kubrick did in The Shining (1980).
Shutter Island is Scorsese’s fourth collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio. If you still think DiCaprio is that pansy from Titanic, please get your head out of your ass. DiCaprio has matured to emerge into one of the finest actors working today. He's fulfilled the promise he showed us in Lasse Hallstrom’s 1993 film What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? His performance in one of the final scenes will make your heart erupt in your chest. Scorsese has done this before with Robert De Niro in Cape Fear (1991) and Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York (2002). My heart is a film projector that plays Scorsese movies all day. Shutter Island is based on Dennis Lehane’s book of the same name. The film Shutter Island is a near perfect exact replica of the book, as the lines between the book and the film are wonderfully blurred. My jaw literally dropped as I watched the film visually materialize from the pages of the novel. One of the best features of the book and film was the incredible finale and one scene in particular dropped a fairly large hint about the film’s conclusion.
While I don’t consider this one of Scorsese’s best films, it is up there as one of his best examples of modern period Film Noir. This man belongs in a museum. He is a national treasure.

3.5 out of 4 stars

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