Director Martin Scorsese attracts audiences with a creepily promising premise in his long-awaited new release, ""Shutter Island."" The attraction to solving the film's mystery lasts well into its second half, but the resolution is annoyingly groan-producing and contrived.
U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) are sent to a mental institution for the criminally insane in search of an escaped patient. The institution is on Shutter Island, near Boston Harbor, signifying that the patient could not have gone too far. As DiCaprio's dark past is revealed, however, we realize his trip to the island involves ulterior motives, and in return, he gets more than he bargained for.
Although Scorsese is more or less successful in establishing the pervading creepiness that haunts a good portion of the film, a lot of the time it's with a melodramatic awkwardness that is difficult to avoid. An over-the-top dramatic score accompanies the scene introducing the audience and DiCaprio to the island, which at the time appears to be relatively normal; random shots and hallucinations of war feature smiling dead women of DiCaprio's past and present; an unnecessary and disturbing flashback contains completely unsettling dialogue.
Unsurprisingly, DiCaprio gives a stellar performance as the suspecting, emotionally involved U.S. marshal, capturing every emotion from unyielding skepticism to violent anger to uncontrollable grief with ease. Supporting performances and cameos by Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson are outstanding as well, creating enough intrigue to fuel the narrative forward, at least before the final few scenes.
The film's greatest flaw lies in its unpleasantly labored twist. A suspension of disbelief exists within every good film, in which the audience believes implausible happenings in the film's world if enough realism accompanies them. This suspension survives throughout most of the movie—even through the melodrama and seemingly supernatural hallucinations—but one moment ruins it all, forcing audiences to question whether it ever was rightfully present in the first place.
The majority of the film shows promise in suspense and manipulation, but the horribly contrived twist could have (and should have) been approached more subtly. All but one scene after the twist provide the audience with an abundance of ""flashing arrows,"" or blatant, sometimes obnoxious explanations of the film world's actual reality and psychological clarifications. Redemption almost occurs in the partially ambiguous conclusion, but unfortunately, the damage has been done.
Scorsese keeps certain aspects that have led critics and theorists to brand him as an auteur (i.e. stylized violence, the morally ambiguous protagonist) but strays a little from his more recent projects with this move into the film noir thriller genre. ""Taxi Driver"" and ""Cape Fear"" proved his authority over the thriller, but certain elements that made those projects successful—for instance, trusting the audience enough to let them draw their own conclusions—are placed convolutedly into ""Shutter Island,"" causing it to fall short of his usual level of excellence.
This isn't to say the movie should be completely disregarded. Its initial premise and mystery are tantalizing with shady explanations and character development, but the attempt to keep this attraction going fails with overanalysis and a drawn-out story.
