Rugged Movie Review – Shutter Island (2010)

About four years after the Academy finally gave him his lifetime achievement Oscar for the Departed (2006), director Martin Scorsese returns to feature filmmaking with Shutter Island, a story about the fragility of sanity.

The plot follows Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio), a troubled U.S. Marshal with a dark past that ranges from the death camps of Nazi Germany to his own back yard. Teddy’s been called to the Island to find an escaped mental patient who may have murdered her three children. Of course, nothing is as it seems and to find the truth, Teddy must confront his own demons with the aid of partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) and a duo of devious doctors (the always reliable Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow) as he navigates the gloomy backdrop of Shutter Island – a place where ghosts exist, whether before your eyes or within the landscape of the human mind.

WHAT THE FILM BUFFS SAY

Flickchart.com Winning Percentage: 85%

Flickchart.com Losing Percentage: 15%

Flickchart.com Times Ranked: 1540

HOW THERUGGED.COM SCORES IT

· Crapball 0-20%: High school drama troupe doing Romeo and Juliet? Yeah, see that instead.

· Wait for Video 21-40%: If nothing better is on the shelf…

· Budget Theater 41-60%: At least it was only two bucks!

· Matinee 61-80%: Good way to spend a lazy afternoon.

· Evening Show 81-90%: Pay the $10, smuggle in a candy bar from the grocery store.

· Opening Weekend 91-100%: Plan your Friday around it.

THE APPEAL

Judging from the 67% critics gave this film on Rotten Tomatoes, it has become apparent the RT community has their crap together more so than the punks that get paid for their opinions. The critical disdain for Shutter Island springs from the fact that critics – supposedly the most open-minded people in filmdom – are starting to think like marketing people. Incensed that Scorsese has made a film that deviates from his most popular topic – gangsters – they’ve unfairly attacked Shutter Island for being different. Last time I checked, Scorsese, a film buff as much as he is a filmmaker, drew influence from masters, such as Federico Fellini and Stanley Kubrick because they took chances. If you look over Scorsese’s storied career, so has he:

1. The hilariously dark King of Comedy.

2. The romantic drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

3. The bizarre mindwarp After Hours.

4. The mildly horrific Bringing Out the Dead.

5. The controversial religious drama the Last Temptation of Christ.

6. Fantastic biopics such as the Aviator and Raging Bull.

All of these films inhabit the same catalog as popular crime-dramas Casino, Goodfellas, and Taxi Driver. All belong. So does Shutter Island.

While Shutter Island doesn’t try hard to hide its secrets, the thinly veiled mysteries presented herein are not where the film’s heart lies. Instead, the solid Laeta Kalogridis script feeds the mind with thought-provoking developments that call into question what sanity truly is. It’s a film that makes you think, not about “figuring it out”, but about the importance of what is going on inside Teddy’s head.

Scorsese uses color and music to masterful effect in creating a piece that is reminiscent of both the Shining (1980) and Angel Heart (1987), while standing strong as its own beast and making use of a stellar cast, which includes Emily Mortimer (Transsiberian), Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain), Elias Koteas (Shooter, Zodiac), Ted Levine (TV’s Monk, the Silence of the Lambs), and Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen, Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)).

WHY GUYS LIKE IT

We can relate to Teddy. Even though we’re sometimes responsible for it, we don’t like to see injustice, and we can let our emotions guide us to do some pretty horrible things in response to it. Teddy isn’t a bad guy. He’s just a man, old before his time, pushed into a world of violence who has learned against his will to deal with problems that way. He’s also a fixer. Even when he doesn’t have the answers, he likes to stay active. It’s the only way he knows how to deal with the bad things that have happened to him. It’s the only way he can cope with the Hell that is Shutter Island.