Eh?

Rating: 3/10 (15 April 2010)

Picture the scene. A packed cinema audience in silence waiting for the telling moment when all this makes sense. Then the screen goes black, the credits roll and the house lights come on. The audience sits there for a full 10 seconds (a long time if you try it) while looking around at each other saying "is that it?" Now I may not have worked hard enough to understand the film and that may be a failing on my part having been brought up on Die Hardesque action films that don't require much thought, but Shutter Island had me scratching my head for a good few hours after the end. The film starts well. The first 40 minutes or so set the scene tremendously well, introduce the characters, draw you into the despair of a mental hospital and prepare you for a Hitchcock type nerve jangler for the remaining hour and a half or so....But I'm afraid that nerve jangling didn't quite appear. There was nothing in the rest of the film that made me sit up and go "ooh!" or "yikes!" or even "gosh". There were no explosive scares. When you suspected there was going to be one, the character on screen started talking just before the 'moment' so it damped it down a bit. Actually, the lady behind me dropped her bottle of juice at one point which scared the bejeezuz out of the whole audience more than this film! There are too many unanswered questions in this film. Too many key moments that never get answered when you get to the end and not enough to keep you on the edge of your seat. Critics loved it, movie execs too. But really, the film industry is about getting guys like me and my mates to spend a few hours and ten quid once a week to come and watch your work. If this is anything to go by then Mr Scorcese won't be getting my tenner again. If you love getting your pants scared off and throwing your popcorn about in panic then don't bother, if you like an adrenaline fuelled ride through the city streets with copters and rockets keep away, but if you love analytical thrillers and making up your own theories to explain film endings you'll love it. just don't try and explain it to me if we meet.