Overused storyline, overblown execution

Rating: 3/10 (23 March 2010)

This is the third time, and thus the last time, I decide to go watch a Scorsese/DiCaprio movie. A utter disappointment. Di Caprio teamed with Scorsese so he could have a great director to secure a couple of solid films over the years. I don't know who's at fault here, but Gangs of NY, The Aviator, and now Shutter Island are all devoid of emotion. They are symptomatic of this Hollywood cancer were everything looks utterly professional, well designed and nicely crafted, lots of work, energy and dough that can't make up for the lack of creativity. Lots of TV series are much better at that, and no wonder since the best writers are continuously fleeing towards non-cinema formats.
The good points are the location, which would really deserve a better story, Dante Ferreti's settings and the cast - although I'm bored with good boy DiCaprio doing his best with the contrived emotional range stuffed for the main character in those scripts. Scorsese is just a journeyman in those flicks. The story is so heavy handed, it's a pity to see his devoted editor patch together dead-long scenes overflowing with pathos and deliver such this overlong and overblown continuity. There's nothing in Scorsese's direction that makes you feel the ever-present insanity. It's all in the annoying score and cheap horror tricks.
Nuff said. Scorsese can't do great movies if they're not about Italian American marginals and mobsters. With Di Caprio he is bound to do overblown impersonal stuff. And Di Caprio should start to look for a real villain part because we've seen him to much trying to do good with his chubby face.
Bottom line: if I had downloaded this movie instead of going for the big screen, I would most certainly have stopped watching and erase it 45min into the story, would have saved me lots of time and the bore of a movie becoming worse and worse as it rolls out on the sickening pretense of being clever.