A barely enjoyable miss

Rating: 4/10 (2 September 2010)

Forgetting the sucker I am for this kind of genre filmmaking I'm afraid I have to abstain from this one. Mr. Scorsese 's been trying too hard to make a grand, Oscar wining movie too long and now he's won it he seems plagued by his habit. The touch is officially lost. Blame it on the legend.
Right or wrong a noirish crime psychodrama is heavily relied on its plot. To this writer, and I guess to anyone who's read his Edgar Allan Poe and seen his Angel Heart - the far superior movie ancestor of this one – the plot is known in the first ten minutes. The rest, plot-wise, is an alarmingly unpleasant déjà vu. Of course, this being a Scorsese picture, it ought to contain more than meets the eye. It does – to a point at least. There is obsession, pain, guilt, and wrong turns taken. There is also the bombast of self-importance and meaning. Shutter Island (I'd hoped) wasn't the case for applying this kind of filmmaking mentality. Spectacularly, Island, besides being the patchwork of cinematic tributes to end all patchworks, also seeks for post post-modern auteuristic appraisal – not to mention a voracious self-gratification/affirmation. Hitchcock, Fuller, Siegel – all of them here imitated, none of them Oscar holder – would never indulge
Mr. Di Caprio, next only to his last year's performance in Revolutionary Road, is near perfect, the personification of the failing powers of a broken man. But, make no mistakes this a Scorsesian picture – even more than Gangs of New York and Aviator were in their own egomaniacal way. Overindulgent and cinematically aware, this is a 138 minute thriller of the mind emulating genre cinema of the 40s-50s that was about 50 minutes briefer and decidedly more economical. It is beautifully shot and meticulously executed of course but all is so overtly stylized and unfortunately scripted to feel redundant at half time. Scorsese has never been a director of atmospheres in the manner of a Vidor, a Tourneur or a Wise and by attempting at exactly their kind of filmmaking – which he admittedly adores and rightfully acknowledges – fails considerably. His strength has always been addressing the fallen male and in that he manages a welcomely engaging finale – albeit, a gloriously predictable one.
An ill masterpiece for the scholars of the future – who undoubtedly will contribute volumes of their own lives projected in the film – a barely enjoyable miss to the rest.