Meh

Rating: 5/10 (14 February 2020)

From the writer of Terminator Genisys and Atila: Battle Angel and directed by Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island is one of IMDB's top rated movies and i was indeed puzzled. Whilst it is a good film, it's not a standout one at all, not even within the sub genre of psychological thriller.
Let's get the third act twist out of the way because that was the crucial lynch pin with snapped. I found it to be far fetched and though it was telegraphed well enough, the twist was near absurd. Dicaprio's character being a mental patient and the whole plot being part of an elaborate psychoanalytic experiment just simply was not sold to me. The amount of risky situations the patient went through and put others through were too many i found for Ben Kingsley's character to allow. He might be an eccentric psychiatrist, but he himself is not psychotic and anything short of would mean he would have called this whole thing off a while back.
So what though? Did I like the film up to that point? Well, the references to MK Ultra and Mccarthyism i thought were really cute and added some much needed spice to a story that i thought was tethering on becoming cliche at times. Decaprio is not on top form, but I still found his performance to be bold. Not intentionally phoned in, just unfocused. Performances are decent, but none are really that good either. The only emotionally affecting scenes I found were the concentration camp flashbacks which i found to be the most effective of the entire film, whether they were illusions or not. The bodies frozen in ice, that arresting tracking shot, the best of the entire picture, showing the camp guards lined up and gunned down by incensed GIs. However, this is probably due to the historical context. When Daniels' kids are drowned and he kills his wife. I don't know, it just didn't have the weight it should have.
Overall, Shutter Island is a good effort, but it's not one that matches up to the reputations that Scorsese and Dicaprio had previously set for themselves in their respective careers. This is one of the weakest of their collaborations I find. Stereotypes of the mentally ill, dated cinematic devices and a forced period setting makes for an experience that is underwhelming considering the talent involved.