SHUTTER ISLAND - Directed by Martin Scorsese. Screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis, from the novel by Dennis Lehane. Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow. Rated 'R' for violence, some language and disturbing images. 137 minutes.
Take one part One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, one part Titicut Follies (the infamous Maysles' Brothers documentary about a Massachusetts insane asylum) and add a dash of noirish mystery and you have Martin Scorsese's latest masterwork, Shutter Island. While lacking some of the showy flair of some of Scorsese's other work, this movie is every bit as well made as some of his classics and it sticks with you well after the closing credits.
This is one of those movies where describing the plot is almost beside the point--it sets the scene and gives you a sense of the key characters, but doesn't really get to the heart of what the movie is about. Nonetheless, I'll try, however briefly: Leonardo DiCaprio is U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, dispatched to the forbidding Shutter Island with new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) to investigate the seemingly impossible disappearance of a dangerous mental patient. The asylum is lorded over by the genteel yet vaguely menacing Dr. Cawley (played by Ben Kingsley who, post-Schindler's List, seems to have made an entire career of playing genteel but vaguely menacing), a psychiatrist who seems to simultaneously know more and less than he is letting on. Clues and hints appear but don't seem to lead anywhere. A conspiracy is suggested. A hurricane approaches. The electrical system goes down and some of the loonies escape. Now the movie is just getting started.
Honestly, to say more at this point would be unfair to those who are still going to see it. So I'll focus on all the elements that work in this movie: the top notch cinematography by Robert Richardson; the moody score from Robbie Robertson that unsettles you even before you've comfortably taken your seat; top notch acting by all the principles, especially Ruffalo who is always a welcome presence on screen and has a very complex role to play in the movie. Scorsese's direction is absorbing but not showy; he is a master completely in service to his story and his characters. Scorsese hasn't done this good a job and evoking mood and atmosphere in a thriller since at least Cape Fear. There comes a point where you may wonder if the movie is ever going to get to it's climax--but then it arrives and, well, you should see for yourself. I can understand the argument of those who think the movie pulls the rug out from under the audience, but I respectfully disagree with that assessment. Everything in the conclusion is carefully set up, hinted at or even stated outright. But because we are so thoroughly along for the ride in Scorsese's horrific little world, we might not realize it at first. To me, that's just good filmmaking.
My Grade: A
Slip Slidin' Away...
Check out this link (http://www.buzzfeed.com/minjaeormes/olympics-fashion-winner-the-norwegian-mens-c-ohu/) and tell me again how curling isn't the most mindlessly mesmerizing of all the Winter Olympic sports? Like a good David Lynch movie, curling is simultaneously funny, baffling, inscrutable, idiosyncratic, hypnotic and endlessly watchable. It is possible to watch curling for three hours and have no idea that it has been that long or what you've been doing that whole time. Everyone gets the basic principle but no one can explain it, kind of like the Congressional plan to overhaul health care. Then, of course, there's the fashion sense.
Overall, the Winter Olympics for me has been what it always is--sporadically entertaining but generally blah, filled with sports I don't care a whole lot about tape delayed and overproduced to the hilt. I do plan to watch some of the U.S. vs. Canada gold medal hockey match tomorrow and the opening and closing ceremonies are always good for both spectacle and amusement. It was a nice diversion at times but I'll be glad when it's over so that we can get back to a more normal television schedule on both NBC and the competing broadcast networks.
Then it's on to London's summer games in 2012, I guess. My how the time flies! I still vividly remember the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Peace...
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