Shutter Island

Leonardo DiCaprio plays a U.S. Marshal sent to investigate an incident that occurred on Shutter Island, a remote island home to Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. A patient has mysteriously disappeared from her room with no signs of escape, and that is only the beginning of the strange happenings on the island. It's up to Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) to get to the bottom of things and solve this mystery.

Based on the 2003 novel by the same name, Shutter Island is a psychological thriller meant to surprise, frighten, and confuse you. Unfortunately, it only manages to do one of those and no, it's neither of the first two. The film is comprised of two parts; the time spent unraveling the mystery on the island and random flashbacks from Daniels' past. These two are spliced together in no apparent order, especially towards the beginning. Things start to make some sense by the end but the majority of it was unnecessary.

Music plays an important role in the film and the creators make sure you're aware of it. It makes simple things such as walking appear much more epic than they really are. More than an annoyance than anything, the music sometimes spoils what would otherwise be tense moments with its loud overtones. Perhaps they needed to keep the audience awake for the entire film.

For the thriller it's claiming to be, Shutter Island is actually quite boring. As first, you're interested in what's going on in and around the hospital but things don't really go anywhere. Watching DiCaprio run around an island searching for clues isn't as fun as it sounds. In fact, it doesn't really sound fun at all. Not only till the end of the film do things fall in place and even then, you can guess what's going to happen within the first twenty minutes.

We've been seeing trailers for the film for the longest time now since it was pushed back from October of last year. Whether it's the constant pushing of it or the terrible direction it takes, Shutter Island doesn't deliver. Martin Scorsese has delivered some excellent films in his time but unfortunately, this isn't one of them.