Shutter Island: Riddled With Flaws

Rating: 5/10 (13 March 2010)

Shutter Island, the new film from Martin Scorsese, has a hell of a lot to live up to. Personally, I had great faith in the film and was quite looking forward to it. The premise seemed quite interesting and possessing of wonderful potential.
And that it was: Leonardo DiCaprio is US Marshall Teddy Daniels, sent to investigate the disappearance of a prisoner from the eponymous institution for the criminally insane. Working through the stress of a recent tragedy, he falls deeper and deeper into the mysterious case, where everyone seems to be hiding something.
When I first saw Teddy's partner Chuck, and heard in my head the words he was about to say ("You okay boss?"), I knew things were not going to go as well as I hoped. Predictability reigned supreme. From that clichéd 50s detective line to the "twist" ending, bearing all the subtlety and surprise of a loud and luminescent train, things were often painfully obvious. The beginning is annoyingly over-dramatic, the score astoundingly over the top. Plot-exposition-by-numbers soon follows, as well as the overstated oddness of this island. After a very flawed introduction, the film does turn in a better direction. The middle was far more enjoyable than what came before, winning me over somewhat with its developing strangeness. It's not long, however, before the clear signs are given and we see the ending about halfway into the film, making the rest rather a waste of time. We plummet dramatically into a worse third act than first. I was shocked at Marty's descent into intensive plot explanation, taking perhaps half an hour of drawn out dialogue followed by dramatisations of that very dialogue and making me feel as though he thought I was a child incapable of understanding what was happening. For goodness' sake, Ben Kingsley even unveils a drawn out explanation from beneath a velvet cover. Grow up Marty, and don't be so condescending. The movie also owes far more than it cares to admit to The Shining, desperately yearning to be the infinitely superior film for a good portion of its running time while adding the music of Cape Fear gone mad. My poor ears.
Shutter Island is riddled with flaws. It is clunky, overly long, shamefully evident, unoriginal, inconsistent in quality and poorly derivative of a far more enjoyable film. There is enjoyment to be found, however, in the fun middle section and closing statement; one which did at least lend gravitas to its climax. A poor film it may be, but it is at least a fun one at that. Scorsese has underperformed here, though not entirely terribly.