Ok, Shutter Island. As I've said before it was the first 2010 movie I wanted to see and it's been sitting on my comp for about a week now. So in my insomnia from sleeping till two in the afternoon and then taking an hour nap at six, I decide to knock Shutter Island (and subsequently The Crazies) out of the way late last night into the night owl hours.
The premise is fairly simple. Edward "Teddy" Daniels, and his partner Chuck Aule, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo respectively, are sent to Shutter Island to help find a patient who has apparently escaped with without a trace. Sorry Anthony Lapagila, your not in this flick. Her (the escaped patient) name is Rachel Solando, played by Emily Mortimer. Anywho Shutter Island is an mental institution on an island and they house the criminally insane. They get to the island, run by Dr. John Cawely, played amazingly by Ben Kingsly, and immediately are forced to relinquish their weapons and begin their investigation into the missing woman. Teddy quickly is angered after the first day cause no one is telling them the truth, he starts to get migraine's, and beings to go off on his own a lot, commando style, to investigate the missing woman. This is accentuated when we find out his wife died in a fire, and the woman they're looking for drowned her three kids and thought nothing of it. Then about a day after they get to the island, the woman suddenly turns up, and thing begging to get even worse for Teddy as the hallucinations he began to get on the island kept getting worse and worse. This is where I stop with the plot summary, cause past this point I'm giving away the movie, but I'm sure you already figured out the twist, like I did just from this little summary.
It was a Scorese film, so you know all the cinematography, filming and acting are going to be top notch. Even in a fairly predictable story-like this he kept me engaged by writing the characters, especially Teddy, in a way that I wanted to know about him and what happened in his life. Brings me to Leo's role as Teddy, and like all DiCaprio performances he did a superb job. What I like about him in all his movies in that when I watch them he acts as if he really is living the life of the person. Something a lot of actors do, but it comes off fake, or unbelievable. Mark Ruffalo gave a great performance as Leo's right hand man and partner in this. I don't think I've seen any movies with him in it, but this being the first, he impressed me and I'll not shy away to a movie of his in the future. Not many people can compliment Leo, but I think Mark did a great job, and even the little back and forths between them a partners were very nice. Finally the last role I wanna write about is Ben Kingsly as Dr. Cawley, the head if the institution. I like the old-school role he played, as almost the mad-scientist psychologist. He really only wants to help the patients, but he also wanted to get his agenda done with new types of therapy, regardless of the patients. So it seemed to be a two way street with him. Overall, all the performances were great, but I wouldn't expect less, and I doubt Scorese would've either haha.
Rotten Tomatoes and Megacritis both have this film at around a 60% fresh and/or mixed to good rating. And I gotta agree with them. We've seen much better from Scorese and Leo for that matter. I.e. The Departed a couple of years back that won Best Picture, and rightfully so, at the Oscars. This was a tired story that's been done before, but Scorese filmed it in such a good way it kept me engaged despite the kind-of long run time. Also the performances by the actors listed above left me feeling very pleased at 2AM this morning when it ended. I recommend it, I don't think it will win any awards, but it's nicely filmed and acted and was a nice watch.
Rating for Shutter Island: 8/10 or 4/5 Stars.
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