Shutter Island -- Review

How far are you willing to fall down the rabbit hole?  What would you do if you started hearing voices that weren't really there? How would you react if you saw something standing before you that you knew all too well could not and/or does not exist?  Psychological thrills toy with your senses and allow your mind to fall down some of the deepest, darkest holes that exist without any real affect.  Some times they are wildly successful, and other times they become a joke all on their own.  When done properly I find that they are quite possibly the most terrifying genre in filmmaking.

The skills and talents of Martin Scorsese did not shine as bright as I had hoped with a film whose release date has repeatedly been pushed over the past few months.  Shutter Island felt like a story that had been pulled over and forced to take a sobriety test and could not manage to walk a straight line with one foot in front of the other.  It couldn't figure out what it wanted to do.  Without giving away too much of the story it is very hard for me to say much about the film, but having not read the book the film is based off I can only say that I feel as though the wonderful Marty has let us down.

Shutter Island is a short cry from the majority of psychological thrillers made today.  Telling stories that toy with our minds, making us see and believe things that are not there or just plain do not exist.  By the time they story evolved into something interesting I had a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had seen this film once before.  Once the voice in my head started speaking to me I could not get them to shut up and I quickly became distracted by the familiar voices in the film and trying to identify them rather than just watching the story unforl.  After watching Mark Ruffalo play characters in so many romantic comedies, I felt like it was a bit of a stretch of the imagination to watch him play Chuck Aule.  Ben Kingsley pulled off his role as believable as any other previous role.  Leo was good, but with an opening scene where he's on a ship in the "open sea" I felt like I was watching a a visit to the glory days of Titanic, however once his face is revealed we know "that" Leo is long gone.  This mature Leo is fun to watch on the screen, but after his last film with Scorsese I had much higher hopes for the film.

Shutter Island is an entertaining ride through the mind.  There were some tricks that played out extremely well and others that fell short of their intended goal.  I felt a bit like a cat who was given a catnip toy on a string, but once I pulled the toy free and figured out what was happening I lost interest.  My main complaint with the film was the ending that left me disappointed due to how predictable and obvious it became almost at the halfway point.  I give the film a 3 out of 5.  For the amount of time spent waiting for the final release I feel the hype was more than the film delivered.  But be your own judge.  Maybe the suspense and thrill is just perfect.  For me, I wanted a little more.