Shutter Island

Post war thriller with a pre-war jitter!

Set in 1954 Leonardo Di Caprio plays US Marshal Teddy Daniels, assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from the Boston Shutter Island hospital for the criminally insane.

The patient in question Rachel Solando, escaped from a locked room after been institutionalized for drowning her 3 children.

Accompanying Daniels on his investigation is his newly assigned partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo). Assisting the investigators with the case is head doctor for the institute Dr Crawley (Ben Kingsley). It is immediately apparent to Daniels that there is something amiss as Crawley is reluctant to provide him with essential information regarding the case. When he stumbles upon a hospital board meeting consisting of several shady members, it only serves to convince him further that this case is not all it initially appeared to be.

As their investigating continues, a hurricane hits the island causing a complete power cut.

From here on things start to get really racey and tense, and with patients escaping, the guards are otherwise engaged therefore Daniels and Chuck have the ideal opportunity to discover for themselves if there is an underlying reason behind the patient's disappearance.

For a US Marshal, Daniels appears to be a very troubled person and from the onset suffers from wartime hallucinations and nightmares from his past. He begins to ask himself why he was assigned to this case, was there really a legitimate escape or are the doctors on this island using a fictitiuos incident to mask some illegal treatments/experiments on patients!

The movie itself is captivating and looks amazing. Scorsese shot it in a very Cape Fearish manner with lots of quirky camera angles and film noir poses. The performances are all worthy from the three lead male actors and there are sufficient supporting performances from Michelle Williams and Patricia Clarkson.

The movie may frustrate you as there are so many twists and turns along the way with no loose ends tied up until the very end. I personally was agitated by the fact that I didn't forsee how or when these lose ends would tie up. However, it made it all the better as the climax is definitely worth the wait.

Overall it's another classic Scorsese/Di Caprio venture!

Score: 8/10