Shiver's Cove

Rating: 5/10 (9 May 2010)

From the first image in this film doesn't it look like Leonardo Dicaprio is already regretting his decision to be in this movie, is Teddy regretting going to the island. The answer doesn't much matter, because none of the answers waiting at the end of "Shutter Island" matter. Answers to plot points are just the carrot leading our hero from one way too symbolic hallucination and dream sequence after another.
"Shutter Island" is "Jacob's Ladder" with some "Manchurian Candidate" thrown in there, under a general Hitchcock umbrella. "Session Nine" as a made for t.v. melodrama. It was okay, like "The Departed" which preceded it, this will be remembered as one of Scorcese's best, but it was entertaining.
"Don't Look Now" and the other two I mentioned are better a this type of mind-f7.k pulp, and "Bringing Out The Dead", and "The Last Temptation Of Christ", have better Scorcese hallucination sequences too. The performances were all done though. I especially liked Elias Koteas' brief one eyed arsonists, especially after last year's body-artist serial killer in "I Come With The Rain", he's making racket out of the soft spoken maniac, the way Anthony Hopkins used to (or still kinda does considering "The Woflman").
Predictable for the most part, but the extended dream sequences were better than most and narrowly (but just barely at times) avoided some "Number 23"-esque embarrassments. I wish the average mainstream film would be at least this caliber, but because the average is so low, something like "Shutter Island" ends up looking allot better than it really is by comparison.
It's all an illluuuuussssiiioon! I enjoyed it for what it was, but I doubt this will be anyone's favorite movie.