Shutter Island

Based on the best-selling novel by Dennis Lehane and brought to the big screen by Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese, ‘Shutter Island’ is an eerie psychological chiller comprised of various genres: gothic suspense, pulp fiction and conspiracy thriller, interspersed with sudden shock-moments of graphic violence we have come to expect from Mr. Scorsese.

Set at the height of the Cold War in 1954, US-Marshal Teddy Daniels (Academy Award nominee Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) are summoned to Shutter Island, a fortress-like island housing a hospital for the criminally insane. Their job is to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a multiple murderess from a locked room within the impenetrable walls of the ward. If this doesn’t make much sense to Teddy and Chuck (and it does not), then other occurrences soon follow that will make even less sense. As they are about to discover, hospital staff as well as the leading psychiatric doctors (Ben Kingsley as Dr. Cawley and Max von Sydow as Dr. Naehring respectively) don’t seem too keen in providing clues to help the investigation.

Especially Dr. Cawley (Kingsley in one of his best performances) seems to play an unnerving cat-and-mouse game with Teddy. The general claustrophobic atmosphere and eerie corridors, together with an escalating storm, underline that game. The more Teddy probes and looks into the strange disappearance, the more he feels a sinister conspiracy is at work – ranging from repressive mind control to medical experiments. Flashbacks of his own past begin to haunt him – bringing back harrowing memories of the liberation of Dachau (and the subsequent discovery of its victims) as well as the tragic death of his young wife due to an arson attack. Nothing seems real anymore and Teddy begins to fear that he is being watched, being drugged and destined to never leave the island again…

The film succeeds in creating an atmosphere of subtle terror but above all, the major twist toward the end is one the viewer won’t guess, until it punches you in the face. It’s not just a cat-and-mouse game cleverly played by Kingley’s character in the film; it’s also a cat-and-mouse game that Scorsese and scriptwriter Laeta Kalogridis play with the audience. DiCaprio delivers a compelling performance of a man losing his mind, while Kingsley’s portrayal of the impenetrable and shifty Dr. Cawley seems loosely modelled on the German expressionist classic ‘Dr. Caligari’.
There are, however, some lesser moments too, namely the movie’s length (slightly shorter would have worked better) and the graphic flashback sequences. Once again, less would have been more; particularly the disturbing ‘discovery’ scenes in the concentration camp are somewhat repetitive. One sequence would have been enough to demonstrate Teddy’s disbelief of the horrors he’d just discovered.

‘Shutter Island’ is no doubt a bit of a detour for Scorsese in that he fuses genres he normally would turn into separate movies. By and large, it’s an example of clever film-making (dare I use the word ‘experiment’?). Visually stunning, it’s a movie that will have you involved until its shocking conclusion, thanks to bravura performances from all the cast.