I tend to look for movies that draw me in and that provoke an emotional response. Martin Scorcese's "Shutter Island" did indeed draw me in, even though I found the film disturbing. Scorcese explores difficult questions of guilt, personal identity, and mind control.

The movie takes place in 1954 on a craggy, remote and forbidding island off the coast of Boston. (I have some familiarity with a United States possession called Navassa, an uninhabited, little-known island in the Carribean surrounded by steep, inaccessible cliffs and was reminded of Navassa by the movie.) Shutter Island serves as a hospital and prison for the criminally insane operated by the United States government. A United States Marshall, Teddy Daniels, and his ostensible partner, Chuck Aule, who calls Daniels "boss", are ferried to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a female inmate who has apparently escaped. The inmate is said to have drowned her three children before her incarceration. Daniels himself carries with him many emotional issues. He witnessed the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp and has had problems with alcohol. His wife died in a fire set by an arsonist. Daniels sought an assignment to Shutter Island because the arsonist and another individual from Daniels' past are incarcerated there, and Daniels wanted to see for himself what was going on.

At the hospital, Daniels meets the head psychiatrist, a bearded, crafty and intelligent individual named Cawley, and his sinister German assistant, Nehring. He meets with staff, with prisoners, both male and female, and with inmates of the "C" ward, used to house the most dangerous prisoners. As the movie progresses, Daniels suffers increasingly from tremors and from hallucinations, most of which are in the form of his dead wife warning him about the island. Daniels also receives warnings and augurs from the patients. He senses that something is not right about the investigation but cannot let it go.

The movie has the makings of a gothic horror film, but it gets beyond that genre by its seriousness and development. The movie builds slowly and inexorably to itconclusion and most parts of the story contribute to the effectiveness of the whole. The feeling of isolation and doom is inescapable, with a mental hospital on a remote island, a hurricane which cuts the Shutter Island off even further from the mainland, and the chilling, hidden natures of staff and inmates on the island.
The movie includes scenes of cliffs and danger on the island, pounding waves, wild rats, a mysterious lighthouse, and lost souls. A difficult and troubled individual, Daniels comes to challenge his understanding of himself in a radical way. I found the confusion in sense of selfhood, in circumstances of isolation and helplessness, chilling.

The movie is based upon a 2003 novel by Dennis Lahane called "Shutter Island" which I have not read. The acting is convincing throughout and the musical background is erie. The movie has received mixed reviews. Scorsese's movies such as "Taxi Driver", "Raging Bull" and "Gangs of New York" with their portrayal of violence, illusion, and rawness have always fascinated me. "Shutter Island" did so as well. The movie has attained a large success at the box office, and perhaps can be viewed and responded to on many levels. I don't think it is for the faint at heart.

Robin Friedman

I think that some of the mixed things I'd heard about it come from the fact that some audiences were a) expecting something different and b) don't like to think. To be fair the studio mislead them by selling Shutter Island as a fun, edge of your seat, thrill ride. It's really a psychological drama disguised as a B grade horror movie. It indulges in all the gothic tropes: the isolated mental hospital, the hurricane that cuts everything off from civilization, hints of Nazi experiments, even the music plays into it. But really that's just the setting. If you take it as the whole thing, that's where you'll run into disappointment. It's more about what's happening in the mind of the main character- which is a puzzle in itself- than the big twist ending. I think that The Sixth Sense and others of it's ilk did a disservice to audiences in a sense. People look for the "trick" in movies, studios advertise the "big twist ending". But this isn't a movie about a twist. Yes, there's a big reveal in the end, and the "what" of the reveal is fairly obvious. It's the "how" and the "why" that we should be thinking about. These are the answers to the psychological puzzle of the film. People get so into the "what" after being groomed on twist endings that they forget there is a "how" and a "why". When the big reveal comes it's more about the catharsis, the coming full circle, the emotional confrontation, than the twist itself.

Yes, it can be confusing not to know whether the main character is dreaming or hallucinating, or really seeing what is. But with patience that becomes clear and the beautifully photographed, eerily haunting dream sequences are worth watching without trying to "figure them out". Just enjoy the performances (impressive across the board), the score, the cinematography, and go where the film takes you. Some might call the ending a cop out. But really it leaves audiences with even more questions: are there some things that are so painful that we're better off (literally) cutting them out of our brains? Is a delusional mind a prison or an escape? Who is sane? Is sanity a choice? In my opinion answering these questions would be the cop out!

It goes without saying that Martin Scorsese is an incredible filmmaker. He has added another classic to his resume with the mind-bending thriller, "Shutter Island". The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a federal marshal who is investigating the disappearance of a patient / prisoner from a mental institution for the criminally insane. DiCaprio shines in his part, perhaps brighter than he has in any other Scorsese film. He is accompanied by Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Max von Sydow, Ted Levine and Jackie Earle Haley, amongst others. "Shutter Island" does a great job of playing mind games with the viewer. This film makes for a great DVD to own, because you can watch it as many times as you would like and you can discover new clues in the plot over and over again. Also, after viewing the film the first time, once you know the outcome of the plot, subsequent viewings are really terrifying if you put yourself in the main character's shoes, knowing the ending. That's what I do when I watch the film now, and I think it's genuinely scary because it is so competently written. Scorsese's direction is excellent, as are all the actors' performances in the film. The film is a dark noir styled trip down the rabbit hole that is frightful and tense throughout. Definitely a modern Scorsese classic here, folks. Well worth checking out, multiple times. Highly recommended! 4.5 stars.