DiCapro & Scorsese's teamwork continues to be well respected in this crafty red-herring ghost story/suspense thriller.

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2010)

SHUTTER ISLAND (2010) *** Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas. Well crafted but loaded with red herrings/MacGuffins galore adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel about a pair of US Federal Marshals (DiCaprio and Ruffalo) investigating the escape of a patient on a remote island prison for the criminally insane circa 1954 where all is not it appears to be (and then some!) in maestro filmmaker Martin Scorsese's well-checked salute to Hitchcock with some Lynchian underpinnings to make things all oogie-woogie in this at-times-edge-of-your-seat suspenser/ghost story until the exposition choked final act (which becomes tiresome and drawn out for those that might not get the 'gotcha' that's been leading up to its cliffhanger climax). DiCaprio, who gives one of his most exhaustingly expert turns here running the gamut of practically every emotion know to mankind, heads a crackerjack ensemble cast running on all-cylinders (too bad the same can't be said of Laeta Kalogridis' script which becomes a tad redundant). Yet all the same perfect viewing for a dark-and-stormy night.