One of the Greatest Emotional Thrillers

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2013)

A movie, an emotional ride, a work of art. There are many ways to describe Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio's Shutter Island (2010). This film does something that very little other film can do, It keeps you in the dark and confused about the characters past, present and future while also drawing you very attached to them all with crazy and obscure symbols. The way they accomplish this is a riveting story line mixed with incredible scenery, lighting, color and sound, while the entire movie giving you hints about his past without you even knowing. The thing that is most shocking and breathtaking in this movie though is the acting. All the characters don't even feel like they are on a movie screen. It seems as though you are standing right next to them as all of this is happening right before your eyes because the acting is the best I think I've ever seen in anything, mainly from Leo Deo(Leonardo DiCaprio).
Let me give you the intro to the movie. It starts out following a man named Teddy played by Leo Deo and his partner Chuck played by Mark Ruffalo. They are federal Marshall's sent to Shutter Island(an island which only has a mental hospital on it.) to help investigate a missing patient at a who seemingly vanished. That's all I'm going to say about the story line because I will be mainly be talking about the execution of the movie itself, the story is amazing and I'd love to talk about it but I honesty feel like the story is something you discover on your own so just talking even a little about it would take away from such a great movie. It has so many twists and turns as more and more is revealed to you that it keeps you at the edge of your seat the whole movie. That being said, throughout the entire movie they somehow are able to draw upon your emotions and make you question certain things without them even telling you, just based on the eerie music, lighting and ludicrous dream sequences. There are many many symbols/ important statements said and shown throughout the movie that they don't even address and you don't notice until the end that they were even there. They keep you guessing so much that it seems the audience is so focused on the big picture that they don't see the clues right in front of them. It is incredible how they are able to hold the audiences attention just with the mood, scenery, and sound while constantly feeding you information that you try to make sense of in your head which draws you even deeper into the movie.
When you watch this movie, I want you to pay attention to the dream sequences very closely. Look and listen to what the characters are saying, wearing and their reactions to each other. It is insane the amount of detail and thought goes into these scenes and at first you just see the scenes as a confusing gaze into Teddy's past, but there are so many secrets to be found in the entire movies but especially in these very emotional and symbolic scenes of the film. Just looking at how the characters interact with each other is a treat because the execution of all the scenes is flawless. Take this dream scene for example, Teddy is walking near a pile of bodies at a concentration camp and he sees a woman and child dead on top of each other. The little girl eerily gets up and whispers that he should have saved her and all of "us". Then he is now walking through a very fancy house where he encounters the man that burned his apartment to the ground and killed his girlfriend. They stare each other down next to a fire as he plays with matches and he lights his cigarette. There is so much more to this scene, but for the sake of space lets just look at this. The heartache, shock, and regret on his face as he sees the girl rise and stare him down paints such an amazing picture and lets you know exactly how the characters feel and just how bad Teddy's past is. When he see's Latus, the anger and hatred on his face is so believable, it really draws you into the characters and makes you want to know exactly what is going on with them on the inside and out. The music and noises of these scenes only add to the incredible tension that you can just feel even through the screen. This movies feels like an emotional roller-coaster as you are trying just as hard as Teddy to figure out what is happening. It feels like you and Teddy are figuring it out together which makes you feel even more attached.
Like I said earlier, one of the best, if not the best tool that they use to draw on your emotions is the acting. Seeing every tear, every outburst and every wrinkle in all the characters faces as they traverse through this hell on earth is so believable and so heart wrenching that I feel like this pulls you in more than any other of the tools they use. We are all human and we all have feelings and pasts so it is easy for us to relate to other people who are going through something as crushing as this. It is something that all humans share, we have a past, we laugh, we cry, and we cherish moments. They use this truth like I've never seen before. Seeing the pain from Teddy's face and the anguish he is going through on the inside tears a hole in your heart because he plays such a perfect Teddy, that it doesn't feel like a character anymore, it feels like a friend.