Insanity Island

Rating: 8/10 (21 February 2010)

Late in "Shutter Island," Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's head-spinner of a novel, weary U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the Warden (Ted Levine) of the Ashecliffe Institute (which rests on the titular isle) share a conversation on God, nature, and violence while in a moving jeep. Scorsese ingeniously blocks the scene so that all we see are the two men conversing and the spring foliage passing by, as if our characters are being propelled toward the inevitable not by a motor vehicle, but by fatalistic machinations beyond their control.
Applying decades of film-making experience to a genre he's less known for (save for the 1991 remake of "Cape Fear"), Scorsese uses this initial element of surprise to, well, SURPRISE us. Continuously. With modern thrillers relying on fickle, manipulative twists as the sole justification for their being, "Shutter Island" (which faithfully ports over a staggering majority of Lehane's characters, plot, and dialog) digs deep into the psychosis of its characters, using the isolated island and its damaged inhabitants as a greater metaphor for a world in which madness reigns (the film is set in 1954, subtly using the Red Scare to extend this theme).
In the opening shot, a ferry slowly emerges from a white, all-encompassing fog; on board are Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), two Marshals who have been assigned to locate Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), a murderess who has inexplicably escaped from Ashecliffe. Through a series of imposing, wide-angle shots and knowingly ominous musical cues, Scorsese sets an overwhelming tone of dread and isolation before our protagonists even get off the boat, and almost sustains it for "Shutter Island"'s entirety. The island is populated by a brilliantly-chosen collection of character actors (most leaving big impressions with only a few lines of dialog): Ben Kingsley (as the evasive Dr. Cawley), Max von Sydow (advocate of brain-surgery-as-clinical-cure Dr. Naehring), John Carroll Lynch (as head of island security), and Levine are quite smooth as administrators and law enforcement, conveying unarticulated jagged edges through stoic stares and subtle mannerisms. The patients themselves range from the seemingly normal males and females of Wards A and B, to the scar-faced terrors of the penitentiary-like Ward C (including Jackie Earle Haley and Elias Koteas).
While Scorsese's genre-crossing film-making skill is impossible to deny here (and is indeed the dominant driving force of the movie), "Shutter Island" marks another notch in the ladder of Leonardo DiCaprio's career. His turn as the penniless, handsome artist in the astronomically overrated "Titanic" really did nothing for me, and it wasn't until 2006's "The Departed" (his third collaboration with Scorsese) that I felt he cemented his leading-man potential. Here, DiCaprio invokes the rugged look and swagger of a '50s celebrity icon; what impresses, however, is the fearlessness with which he probes the psychologically damaged Daniels (as revealed in vivid World War II flashbacks and surreal, grisly dream sequences), going to dark corners that separate his acting skill from his boyish good looks.
"Shutter Island" does such a fine job of keeping the audience unsettled, with the notion that our feet are never firmly glued to any sort of relatable reality, that the climactic events come as a slight disappointment; while Laeta Kalogridis' script is an excellent example of a literary adaptation done right, it is Lehane's key revelation that comes as a letdown. However, credit must be given for presenting it in a manner that coalesces so well with all that has come before that it enriches, rather than cheapens, the film overall. And with a thriller as classy as "Shutter Island," that's merely a minor crime.