A psychological drama grotesquely masquerading as a big budget thriller.

Rating: 1/10 (20 February 2010)

I'm not particularly fond of Leo DiCaprio as an actor, although he is steadily developing into what may one day become greatness. But director Martin Scorsese has been great for so long he is worth seeing just on principle. And of course the previews were enticing. The movie itself was, however, entirely inert.
Once the anemic premise of Shutter Island unravels, which beings almost immediately and progresses with alarming rapidity, all you have left is a tedious and numbingly long dénouement that has been done before, only better. This movie has been likened to the work of M. Night Shayamalan, and the comparison is every bit the insult it was intended to be, as Shayamalan, unlike Scorsese, is known for crafting movies so pretentious, so insubstantial, and so dependent on their own hype. With Shayamalan it would have been expected. For Scorsese, I have to admit I was a bit shocked.
There were protracted financial and artistic complications that delayed the release of Shutter Island. The real tragedy, however, is that they couldn't prevent it altogether. The lurid score is almost mockingly overwrought. The endless and intentionally distracting flashbacks are tawdry and ineffective. Shutter Island is beautifully filmed, and its stars render creditable performances, but it is all for naught, as the film drowns on the ferry before its stars ever reach the island.
I am convinced that if Scorsese had been truer to Dennis Lehane's novel, rather than supplanting it almost entirely with Laeta Kalogridis' completely incongruous screenplay, there might have been something worthwhile. Shutter Island is a psychological drama grotesquely masquerading as a big budget thriller. If you want to see how it should be done, try Identity instead.