Scorcese On a roll -- straight down the Drain ...P. U.

Rating: 1/10 (9 April 2015)

World Premier viewed on Valentine's Day, 2010 at the Berlin Film Festival. A U.S Marshal investigates the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane. "Shutter Island"-- should be shut down quick before it escapes...
Scorcese's SHUTTER ISLAND is a P.U. (it stinks!) production from Paramount, a picture to commit suicide over immediately after use. But Sir Ben Kingley and the Swedish Angel of Death, Max Van Sydow have at last found their ecological niches in cinema history -- as -- uncompromising ultimate GHOULS! I would have ankled this piece of unmitigated water torture after thirty minutes, but being wedged into a balcony seat at the Friedrichstadt Palast theater and unable to extrude my body without disturbing the whole balcony, I was condemned to suffer through the entire torture session to the bitter end. I did try to close my eyes and think of other things a few times, but even that didn't help much. This is pure unadulterated insanity and mindfuck without a letup. The music selections by Mahler, John Adams, John Cage, and others of the Depressia Profunda School, were carefully chosen to provide the film with a certain intellectual cachet, while enhancing the mood of endless misery with a No Way Out conclusion. In the film the exceedingly creepy doctor Kingsley and his Frankenstein like syringe clutching crony, Von Sydow, on the Evil Island where experimental Nazi type brain operations are going on, are trying to convince Govt cop Dicaprio that he has lost his mind, and finally succeed in doing so --but by this time the audience has also been driven pretty much gaga as well.
Mr. Scorcese is obviously trying to outdo Kubrick in "The Shining", but where the Shining had some shining moments, lots of verve, and a bit of a sense of humor, this extended piece of dark mumbo-jumbo has no redeeming moments, no verve or social value whatsoever, certainly no sense of humor, and plods relentlessly on and on aiming for the jugular vein of the mind. This all only goes to prove that Mr Scorcese could probably use a complete brain transplant himself before carrying on. He shoulda thrown in the towel after Raging Bull, but he is apparently too much in thrall with his "great Hollywood director" image to know when it's time to quit. (He did say he was ready to quit a few films ago, but has sadly reneged on this promise). "Shutter Island" (or, The Isle of Ultimate Ghouls) was definitely one to ruin Anybody's Valentines Day. I needa drink! The location of the film is, incidentally, a Devil's Island type islet off the coast of Massachusetts which will probably not do much for tourism next summer.