A little head game and a good watch

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2010)

My partner and I both read Dennis Lehane's book so went along cautiously, expecting this might be another case of a film not matching Dennis Lehane's reader experience—like Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River." Fortunately, Scorcese had a better idea of how squeeze film juice out of book pages—he surprised me, from the opening shot, with the noirish and at times, Gothic gloom. Scorcese makes the story his own, and there's no need to worry whether the adaption is either faithful or energetic.
We were both happy with the use of CGI special effects only to enhance the story and the audience getting into the head of Leo DiCaprio's Teddy Daniels character. In pre-computer days, a director such as Hitchcock didn't have this particular kind of paint in his paint box. We noticed the younger-than-us-audience was completely gripped by the film and we were also highly entertained, finding ourselves discussing it at length afterward—one sign of a good movie.
Any quibbles I have with the film have nothing to do with Scorcese's movie, really, and more to do with how Lehane's story promises at the outset a fresh and perhaps subtle look back at mental health and its treatment in earlier days but in the end, never rises above certain contemporary stereotypes and fixations about what makes minds fall apart.
Who won't enjoy it: the people who want to see the action-packed special effects movies pumped in the trailers before Shutter Island. Who will enjoy it: people who like a little head game with their moving pictures