Overlong but engaging b-movie psychological thriller

Rating: Null/10 (23 January 2011)

When a dangerous patient/prisoner manages to escape a secure and remote mental institution, US Marshall Teddy Daniels and his partner are sent to investigate. Arriving on the island they begin their investigation but find oddity and suspicion everywhere. As their investigation stalls and is hampered by those in charge, Daniels starts to realise that not everyone is who they claim to be, and that not even he has been honest about his motivations for leading the investigation.
Shutter Island came and went and it got mixed reviews. My girlfriend watched it on a plane and disliked it, so it took me longer than normal to get around to watching it. What I found was a solidly enjoyable b-movie thriller which treads a familiar path but mostly keeps the viewer guessing right to the end. Those who have seen more than one film involving an investigation in a mental institution will not be surprised to learn that things are not what they seem, and the film does well to buy into this tone and embrace the rather OTT sense of reality or unreality. The soundtrack is full of heavy horns that compliment this atmosphere further. So in terms of what it is doing it all works really quite well but the problem is that it is overly long and needed to be tighter with a shorter running time. By being in excess of two hours, I was still held by it but at the same time it felt that it was a bit excessive and the longer it took to get to its destination, the more likely the audience were to be pulling at it to move faster.
The performances are good. DiCaprio marked quite a 2010 with this and Inception, both roles that are genre films but with which he was able to do a lot more in terms of his character's psyche. Here he keeps the mystery alive and he takes the viewer with him really well. Support is strong from Ruffalo, Sir Kingsley, Levine, Mortimer, Clarkson, Koteas and others – all playing things close to ensure that there is this air of menace and mystery maintained. Scorsese directs with excess in a good way – striking images are used and I liked the way that there are no obvious visual triggers between reality and hallucinations/memories, this works well and I enjoyed the blurring for the viewer.
Shutter Island is not a perfect film by any means; for what it is it is excessively long and takes too much time at the risk of the viewer getting impatient with its pace. However it does engage and it does work well with the material thanks to strong direction and performances. Well worth a look as a b-movie thriller despite the big names involved.