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Shutter Island
Martin Scorsese does horror well
Shutter Island, which is adapted from a New York Times bestseller (and my favorite book) of the same name, starts out strangely, just as the book did. Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is in the bathroom of a large boat, vomiting his guts out. He looks in the mirror over the bathroom sink and says, "Pull it together, Teddy." He turns, looks out the nearest porthole, and says, "It's nothing but water. A whole lotta water." Water. A seemingly unimportant thing. A thing most human beings take for granted. And, as odd as it may sound, Shutter Island is surrounded by it, both metaphorically and literally.
And boy, Teddy is scared of some water. He has good reason. People drown in it. It takes out even the largest of ships. And it floods into the past, bringing up memories best left forgotten. So his fears are justified. What's not justified is the secret that Shutter Island holds; a secret that, in its complexity, will destroy Teddy if he lets it.
Teddy and his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) arrive at Shutter Island and are escorted up a winding path to Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, the island's main and only feature. They are forced to hand over their firearms before entering the front gate and once inside are greeted by some of Ashecliffe's patients, one of which, an old woman with a large scar on her throat, motions "SHH!" to Teddy and then shakes her head. Teddy notices a large lighthouse in the distance. "What is that?" he asks. "It's a sewage treatment facility" is his answer. They eventually meet Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley) who fills them in on the specifics of their mission: they are to hunt down a psychopathic killer named Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer) who escaped from her locked room sometime during the previous night. "It's as if she evaporated straight through the walls," Dr. Cawley says.
Teddy and Chuck ask around, but nobody seems to know what is going on. Or they're pretending like they don't. They demand to see personnel and staff files, but Dr. Jeremiah Naehring (Max von Sydow) denies their request. Teddy is not pleased. Something stinks, and it's the smell of deception.
Deception: another word that plays a large role in the film. Teddy is deceived by what he doesn't realize. Chuck is deceived by what he already knows. The staff at Ashecliffe is composed of deceitfulness. Dr. Cawley uses deceit as a weapon. Somebody knows what's going on and they're not telling. Or somebody doesn't know what's going on because they're blinded by the past. It's a little of both, actually.
Which brings us to the controversial ending. Some critics have called the ending "ridiculous" (Michael Phillips) and "terrible" (A.O. Scott). Some critics like, oh, I don't know, nobodies like Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper, loved it. I did too. I loved it when I read the book and I love the way it is portrayed in the movie. It makes perfect sense to me and it didn't leave me feeling cheated like the endings of so many other thrillers, like Deception, for example. That's a dumb movie with a dumb ending.
How is the acting? It's a mixed bag. DiCaprio is absolutely fantastic as Teddy. This is one of his strongest performances to date. Ruffalo, not as good, is still likeable as Chuck. Ben Kingsley is one of my favorite actors but I got the sense here that he was just hamming it up, which the role he's in sometimes requires, but other times I wish he had taken himself more seriously. Mortimer doesn't have many scenes but she does good work in the ones she does have. The film's two least-used actresses, the well-established Michelle Williams (who starred in Deception and was nominated for an Oscar for Brokeback Mountain) and Patricia Clarkson (nominated for an Oscar for Pieces of April) put some of the strongest acting in the entire movie on display which I had to appreciate because they didn't have to. It's not like they got the biggest paychecks of their lives for these roles.
In the end, I came away satisfied with Shutter Island. Is it as good as the book? No. But how many movies are? Not many. Is it perfect? Not by any means. Martin Scorsese has the habit of using a little too much in certain scenes and it can be distracting sometimes, but not enough to stop this train from a-rollin'. Scorsese, a legend in the movie industry, doesn't need to make excuses for himself. He knew what his vision was for this movie. He wanted to pay tribute to film noir and Alfred Hitchcock while still doing justice in the eyes of fans of the book. I think he has far beyond succeeded.
Score: :D:D:D:D1/2
Categories: None
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