I 'Shutter' to Think

Like John, I too have a few opinions of Martin Scorsese's insane asylum thriller Shutter Island, and some of them contain SPOILERS big and small. If you wish to be surprised, then don't read ahead.

• This film has an impressive cast of notable names and faces that even manages to rival last week's Valentine's Day. The only difference is that the cast of SI actually has talent... a lot of it. It is not filled to the brim with former models and charmless gossip magazine fodder.

• The combination of dark, dank, stone prison corridors, and the presence of Ted "Buffalo Bill" Levine assured me that the lambs are still screaming.

• The whole movie has an effectively eerie mood and look to it. It is also one of the few shock suspense stories that managed to make me jump with an act as simple as the striking of a match, or as extreme as the firing of a gun.

• Shutter Island seems to be suffering from a case of the "Good, but not Great" syndrome, and I can concur that this is an accurate assessment. Director Martin Scorsese has got such a wide list of greats under his belt (Goodfellas, Raging Bull) that Shutter Island is simply good by comparison. The novel by Dennis Lehane is entertaining, but not nearly as powerful as Mystic River or Gone Baby Gone. The plot also seems to have a great deal in common with Hitchcock's Spellbound, another film considered to be quite good, but hardly among his best. It's plain to see this was not intended to be Oscar material.

• Speaking of Hitchcock, the following quote comes from Roger Ebert's review of the immortal classic Psycho. Using a little word replacement we can uncover what I feel is Shutter Island's biggest misstep:

"For thoughtful viewers however an equal surprise is still waiting. That is why Hitchcock marred the ending of a masterpiece with a sequence that is grotesquely out of place. After the murders have been solved, there is an inexplicable scene during which a long-winded psychiatrist (Simon Oakland) lectures the assembled survivors on the causes of Norman's psychopathic behavior. This is an anticlimax taken almost to the point of parody."

Now just replace these words:

• Hitchcock = Scorsese
• Masterpiece = very good film
• Simon Oakland = Ben Kingsley
• assembled survivors = audience
• Norman's = Teddy's (or Andrew's, take your pick)

Audiences in 1960 had never been manipulated quite like this before, and a full explanation for all of the insanity was not only required, but welcome. Fifty years later you would think that audiences wouldn't require a twenty minute explanation to the resolution. After riding this crazy train for two hours the film grinds to a screeching halt, and decides to throw the training wheels back on. Much like Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, all this spoon feeding renders Shutter Island idiot-proof. I just found the ending excessively overlong and unnecessary. It is kind of like ending a review with a star, number, or letter grade. (Before I forget, B+ by the way.)