Chris Kavan's Movie Review of Shutter Island

Shutter Island: The Truth Hurts
Chris Kavan - wrote on 02/21/10

If Shutter Island has taught me anything, it's not the destination that counts, it's how you get there. With an amazing journey, coupled with a creep atmospere, it more than makes up for a rather predictable ending that masquerade as a twist.

We start off with marshal Edward Daniels and new partner Chuck Aule on a boat headed to the foreboding Shutter Island. An old Civil War encampment turned mental institution. On a mission to track down a missing woman, Daniels is also there to confront a patient named Laeddis, a pyromaniac responsible for his wife's death.

However, the guards, orderlies and patients are less than forthcoming. Daniels even suspects his new partner may not be on the up and up. It doesn't help that he keeps having troubling dreams and flashbacks to when he liberated Dachau. I didn't have to strain to too hard to figure out where this was all going. But even knowing didn't make it any less interesting.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Daniels to the hilt. Whether he's in full marshal mode or comforting his dead wife in a dream, he gets the emotions just right. A supporting cast including Ben Kingsley as the head doctor, Max von Sydow as a shady German doctor and the trio of Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson playing three very different though no less important females.

The best character, however, may be the island itself. From craggy cliffs, flickering lights, a run-down cemetery, a maximum security fort and a lonely lighthouse - each area plays its part and whether it was shot on location or built as a set - this deserves just as much attention as the actors. I mean every two-bit game and a lot of horror films use mental institutions as a backdrop, but it's a rare feat for it to achieve such attention to detail.

Like every good film though, it comes down to story and that's where Shutter Island falls short. As much as the journey is fun to go through with Leo, the fact it's too easy to unravel this mystery makes it lose a lot of impact. Sure it's fun to see Jackie Earle Haley in full crazy mode - but by this time it's too late. I was waiting for another twist to come - a late game-changer, but it never came. I guess it was all so underwhelming in the end.

It redeemed itself somewhat in that very last line - it was the perfect coda to an otherwise disappointing ending. I won't say this a personal best for either Martin Scorsese or DiCaprio, but it's worth the price of admission.