In theaters. Rated R, 138 minutes. Trailer.
Shutter Island is an engrossing psychological thriller with expert performances and an interesting resolution. Unfortunately, what it has in style, it lacks in character development and plot. Director Martin Scorsese helms this adaptation of another of Dennis Lehane's (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) books with the great Leonardo DiCaprio as US Marshall Teddy Daniels. He is investigating the mysterious disappearance of a violent inmate at a high level mental institution/prison on Shutter Island off of the coast of Massachusetts. Click below for more on SI:
He is joined by a new partner (Mark Ruffalo) and quickly identifies Dr. Cawley, head of the facility (Ben Kingsley), as a manipulative caretaker uninterested in meaningfully assisting Teddy's search. As he interviews the patients, nurses and orderlies, Scorsese shows us Teddy's inner-life and dreams as he deals with his time as a soldier and his experiences with the aftermath of the Dachau concentration camp and the death of his wife in a fire at their apartment building. Teddy works with Ruffalo to unfurl the mystery he is faced with, but despite vague clues and an elaborate conspiracy theory, he never makes headway. When he is on the cusp of solving the whole case, it crashes down on him.
That plot summary is vague on purpose. The film has several twists and turns, some of which are actually surprising. The ending of the film was thought-provoking and not completely clear - it led me to want to see it again. Scorsese does a masterful job of leading the viewer into a suffocatingly isolated prison - highlighting all of the details of the journey into the prison - the viewer is on edge the whole time because of the vulnerability of Teddy and Ruffalo and all of the ominous and knowing looks everyone seems to be exchanging. Kingsley and Max Von Sydow are perfect as the bookish villains with cloudy motives.
For me, the dream sequences with all of the fantastic imagery were too much - I never like fantasy even set like this. The visuals in the dreams are interesting, but I was mostly unimpressed because they seemed overproduced and the saturated colors clashed with the palette of the rest of the film in a way I didn't like. Likewise, I thought the film would be full of lush and beautiful usage of its setting, but found the cinematography (other than in the dream sequences) to be boring and uninspired. The other big problem with the film is the lack of character development - only Teddy is developed at all and the rest of the cast is left with scraps in the script to try and fashion characters with. Buffalo Bill appears in two scenes....for what?
The flashbacks to the concentration camp are an intriguing look into how Scorsese would've shot Schindler's List (he traded Cape Fear with Spielberg for Schindler's). The flashbacks involving the drowned children were too much for this parent. My favorite parts of the film involved Teddy's flashbacks and any scene regarding Teddy's life.
Bottom line is that this is a 'pretty good' film with enough Hitchcockian suspense to garner a B+. In the Lehane film series, my rankings are 1. Mystic River, 2. Gone Baby Gone and 3. Shutter Island. Its almost a B.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Shutter Island - B+
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4 comments:
I liked this more than you did, although it's the kind of film that I think I'll have to see a second time to really rank fairly. of course, i partially liked it for the high numbers of illusions to vertigo, as well as north by northwest. The film shares a great deal of DNA with Vertigo, a great deal actually, so this makes sense. I understand that he's also alluding to a variety of other material, but Doc will have to catch that.
I thought DiCaprio was good, but not great in this, but Ruffalo was phenomenal. At first I thought he was a little wooden, but that made sense by the end. I was actually intrigued by how Ruffalo would have done in DiCaprio's role. There's always an understated sadness and depth to him that he seems to be able evoke with the slightest movement of his face or eyes. The rest of the cast was also strong, especially emily mortimer, one of my favorites (and lawyers as well, i think).
The notion of guilt, both collective and individual, is explored with a surprising amount of skill and depth. And i liked the cinematography far better than you, although i thought part of the point was the beauty in the memories versus the drabness of reality. Anyway, I need to see it again. While he harkens back to Hitchcock, with Hitchcock the film always worked as well on a literal level as on the other. This one to me works on-and-off as suspense/horror, but is always on psychologically.
Basically agree but I thought the cinematography by Robert Richardson (Inglourious Basterds) was excellent. The cloudy and rainy setting did make some of the scenes look pretty dark. The costumes and music and art direction are first-rate and Scorsese references old movies well (especially Hitchcock - he hit Vertigo, Psycho, and Spellbound within a span of 60 seconds). But he got a little carried away with the violence and yes, the drowning of the kids is just too much. But as with Gone Baby Gone, the twist(s) are very easy to spot, which leaves little tension toward the end (after the Jackie Earle Haley scene).
I think the purpose of Ted Levine was to discuss the nature of violence and his casting adds another layer when they're talking about how violent they can be. That scene wasn't quite revelatory or insightful enough. But the Patricia Clarkson scene (with the fire over her face) was excellent.
The movie limps toward the end with some slow obvious scenes, but the end was OK. The acting was excellent across the board (with Ruffalo the weakest link). I'll blame Lehane for the obviousness of the twist and unwatchable subject matter (child deaths). Strong B or Weak B+ is about right.
I don't buy the 'study of violence' angle in this film. For me the best meta-angle of the film was the insane/not insane considerations voiced by Clarkson. Dead kids probably had 25 minutes of screentime - thats a lot of squirming for lawyer.
Not sure how this could've been improved - I think Lehane loses a lot of his effectiveness by placing the film in the 50's. A big part of what makes GBG and MR successful to me is the gritty social commentary and portrayal. Nothing here except a Freddy Krueger Elias Koteas.
Not sure I buy the violence exploration either since much of it seems over-the-top or gratuitous.
I think Priest is definitely onto something with the guilt thing - collective and personal, which may be what it is really about. And may be why Lehane used the 1950s so he could reference the Holocaust.
Elias Koteas kinda looked like DeNiro's Frankenstein.
I do think Ruffalo is good, but everyone else has more character and lines to work with. Ruffalo has the deck stacked against him.
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