Review: Shutter Island

Grade: D-

In 1954, U.S. Marshalls Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule are investigating the disappearance of a dangerous murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane on the remote Shutter Island. When the U.S. Marshalls get to the island they can sense that something isn't right. The doctors at the hospital won't let him view records of patients he feels will help solve the mystery. Then a hurricane hits the island and cuts off communication with the main land and more criminals escape in the confusion. Teddy then begins to doubt everything and becomes convinced that there are much deeper and darker things happening on the island.

There are many problems with this movie. To start, the trailer, basically if you have watched the trailer, you have seen the movie. The trailer shows far too much for the movie and as a result I was able to predict how the movie was going to end simply by watching the trailer. I was dead on in my prediction. Even without the trailer though, the movie is extremely predictable. I felt it was easy to tell what was going on from the very beginning, Scorsese wasn't very subtle. On top of that, the movie drags everything out far too much, it easily could have removed 45 minutes from its runtime. I don't know why Scorsese is trying to make an M. Night Shyamalan movie, but he failed at doing so. Please Mr. Scorsese, stick to what you know, gangster movies.

Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond, The Departed) plays the central role of Teddy Daniels. DiCaprio doesn't even give that good of a performance in this movie. At times he seems a bit over exaggerated and it becomes distracting. Mark Ruffalo (The Brothers Bloom, Zodiac) plays Teddy's partner, Chuck. Ruffalo actually did a pretty decent job with his role, the problems I had with his part weren't his fault but rather the writing of the movie. Ben Kingsley (Lucky Number Slevin, You Kill Me) plays Dr. Cawley, the head of the institution. Kingsley was great in the movie and was really the only good part of it, you can thank him for me not giving this movie an F. The rest of the cast includes, Michelle Williams, Max Von Sydow, Emily Mortimer, Jackie Earl Haley and Ted Levine.

I really have to say, don't waste your time and especially your money on this movie. If you really want to see it, wait for DVD. Me, I'm upset that I lost 2 and a half hours of my life to this movie that I won’t get back.

Great quote: "I know you are a man of violence because I am a man of violence."