Scorsese and DiCaprio keep their streak alive with "Shutter Island"

Rating: 8/10 (21 February 2010)

Shutter Island is finally here. The latest film to pair director Martin Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio opens in February, roughly five months later than the original October 2009 date. However, all concerns about the movie's quality (Paramount has said the move was made for financial reasons, anyway) can now be officially cast aside. The wait was well-worth it.
The source material is a (fantastic) novel by Dennis Lehane, who has already had two of his other books adapted for the screen and is no stranger to this process. As a huge fan of Lehane's work, I have largely been disappointed by the adaptations; Clint Eastwood's direction rendered the powerful and emotional drama Mystic River cold and distant, while Gone Baby Gone, though a definite improvement over the former movie, felt a little too bogged down in the seriousness of the story and moral dilemmas, losing much of the charm and humor of the book along the way. Fortunately, with the arrival of Shutter Island, I can now say that we have a Lehane adaptation done right. At this rate of improvement, the next one ought to be a full-blown masterpiece.
Then again, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that Scorsese would be the one to finally get it right. Both he and Lehane have a penchant for urban crime dramas, getting down-and-dirty in the grittiness of city life while maintaining a level of dark humor to offset the occasionally nauseating realism. Shutter Island represents a departure for both of them. It is the only time so far that Dennis Lehane has come close to writing horror, while Scorsese has only attempted the genre once before, with the 1991 Cape Fear. Inexperience matters not, as, though it is certainly different from the rest of their work, Shutter Island is the product of people who truly know their craft. Though Scorsese emphasizes the horror/creepy elements of the plot more, they seem to mostly be on the same page, down to, according to interviews, the works that influenced them and their sources for inspiration - namely, the horror and noir genres of the '50s through the '70s.
Indeed, Shutter Island is set in the 1950s and is more like an old-fashioned psychological thriller than the slasher-horror movies of late. The strings-heavy score, though initially a tad bit overdone, brings to mind Stanley Kubrick's The Shining at times and, combined with the cinematography, art direction and Scorsese's trademark single-camera technique, produces both an intense atmosphere of suspense and the aura of a Hitchcock film or the 1960's classic The Manchurian Candidate.
For his latest venture, Martin Scorsese brings together one of the most eye-popping ensemble casts in any movie since, well, The Departed. As with that movie, the actors - including Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer, Jackie Earle Haley and, of course, the aforementioned Leo DiCaprio - prove here that they've got talent to go along with their names, which are certainly well-known in the more avid film-lovers community, if not the general public. Despite their relatively limited screen time (Mortimer and Haley only have one scene each), the major players in the supporting cast all get a moment to shine and they take full advantage of it, each of them delving into his role with vigor and creating complex, three-dimensional beings, not just the flat characters that populate most thrillers.
But, in terms of acting, the movie unarguably belongs to Leonardo DiCaprio. Perfectly cast, he brings U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels to life, capturing every contradiction and nuance of character depicted in the book while adding his own natural mannerisms and depth; he combines the two with the ease of a pro. There are only a few actors working today that can be fully convincing when asked to cry one minute and kill a person the next, when they must simultaneously exude vulnerability and aggression; DiCaprio is one of those few. His intensity and deftness in performances like this make you wonder why he does not yet have an Oscar.
However, aside from the technical expertise on display, perhaps what most elevates Shutter Island above your generic suspense thriller is the intelligence and depth of the story. Set in a time when the country was still recovering from the atrocities of World War II and the Nazis while fear of Communism was blossoming into full-on paranoia, it raises questions about the ethics and morals of the time period. Shutter Island explores the very nature of sanity and violence, reminding us how volatile the human mind really is; one wrong push and anyone could cross the thin line that separates reason from madness. How should we treat those that do cross that line? Though the field of psychology has come far since the Cold War, that is a question that still plagues us. Should we treat them as patients, with compassion and hope that they can be cured, or as prisoners, as dangerous threats that should be guarded and isolated from society? Still, at its core, Shutter Island is an entertaining and, at times, chilling thriller. The film-makers never forget that, sustaining a tone of suspense throughout the movie and never allowing philosophical musings to overwhelm the plot or characters.
Over the past decade, Scorsese and DiCaprio have proved to be among the most reliable director-actor pairings working in Hollywood today. Even their weakest effort, Gangs of New York, was a solid and fun, if uneven, project. All three of their collaborations thus far have earned multiple Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. It remains to be seen whether they will continue this run with Shutter Island, which is probably the most commercial and least awards-friendly movie of the four, but they should be proud of the work they've done here, regardless of what happens come awards season. Shutter Island is a high-quality film that works as pure entertainment and as something a little deeper. Guys, you've have done it again.