Directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, John Carroll Lynch, Max von Sydow. 2010, USA, Thriller, 160 minutes.

A film buff’s delight more than a truly great movie, director Martin Scorsese’s quasi-horror fails to connect on any emotional level whatsoever because its only art is its 1940s/50s matinee artifice.

Scorsese’s fourth collaboration with star Leonardo DiCaprio – the Dream Team reason it has been such a phenomenal hit in America – dares to ask many serious questions about the human condition. Like, are we the sum total of our memories? Is that what eternal life is? If we take them away do we still have a persona? Is it imperative that everybody has to remember, that everybody has to suffer? The GOODFELLAS goodfella thinks decking the answers out in Val Lewton-esque creepiness, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI pretension and Douglas Sirk dark glamour circa 1954 is enough to make his psychodrama, based on Dennis (MYSTIC RIVER, GONE BABY GONE) Lehane’s novel, meaningful. It actually isn’t. But even if SHUTTER ISLAND is an all fur-coat-no-knickers style of B movie, it’s certainly way above average on the production value front. DiCaprio is Teddy Daniels, a US federal marshal, paired up with fellow investigator Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) to solve the disappearance of a female patient at the Ashcliffe Psychiatric Correctional Facility located on an isolated island off the coast of Boston. Still overwhelmed by his wife's death and the things that he saw while liberating Dachau during World War II, he’s hardly in the frame of mind for dealing with the asylum staff or their startling therapy treatments. From Deputy Warden McPherson (John Carroll Lynch) and facility director Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), to the introduction of Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow) and supposed murderess Rachel Solando (Patricia Clarkson), the sense of foreboding that emanates from the mental institution staff and confines is palpably strange and unsettling and the mystery at its centre one of deep-seated shock. Even if you do see the psychotic break twist coming early on – which most horror fans probably will as we watch something akin to this every month - there is still fun to be had eyeballing the over-qualified cast act their melodramatic socks off and Scorsese use the operatic thrills, Gothic trappings and sub-textual terrors of a trash culture yesteryear to elevate his classy looking delve into subliminal anguish. While the heightened theatricality of this long haul and ultimately over-explained puzzle movie often works against it, Scorsese’s consummate filmmaking skill and fevered imagination repeatedly continues to rescue it from genre fatigue and nostalgia overload.

Clearly indebted to Otto Preminger’s LAURA, Jacques Tourneur’s OUT OF THE PAST, Mark Robson’s BEDLAM and John Huston’s chilling documentary LET THERE BE LIGHT, Scorsese is slumming it with SHUTTER ISLAND to some extent. Yet as an exercise in pure heady style over well-worn cliché content it often weaves a gripping spell in spite of itself.

Allan Jones.

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2010
__________________________________________________________

THE CRITIC-AL LIST
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Kick-Ass
Shutter Island
Alice In Wonderland
The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
The Stepfather
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Uninvited
Amusement
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The RIse OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire