Save your money -- a bomb -- Scorsese is not Hitchcock

Rating: 1/10 (23 February 2010)

Summary: This is bad movie. Don't waste your time or your money on it. There was not a single convincing, or memorable, scene in the whole two-plus hours. There was not a single character to care much about. Most egregious is that this is a suspense film with almost no suspense. The movie was full of clichés -- but virtually every one of them was handled without the grace that made them clichés in the first place. The ending was predictable. The plot was stupid. The music was not the least bit memorable. On the good side? Hmmm, I suppose the cinematography was very nice, and there was a lot of technique (mostly ineffective) with the cameras. Oh, and I liked the double-basses playing the fog-horn motif.
In the elevator in the garage on the way back to my car, a couple was complaining about a movie they had just seen. "What the h..l was THAT?" "I don't know dear. What a stupid movie." "I can't believe what a mess it was!" and so on. I asked them what movie they had just seen: Shutter Island. We agreed with each other as they left the elevator: "Hitchcock, except without anything good in it." I will now do my best to pan this movie without producing any spoilers. However if you want to be *absolutely* certain to enjoy the "suspense" in all possible aspects then don't read any farther.
Suspense? This movie certainly falls in the category of Suspense. Except, er, the movie has almost no suspense to it. There was no rhythm to the sequencing of shots, no building of tension, no small releases. The whole movie was flat, like watching a collection of skits pasted together. Alas, despite his success with Cape Fear (which was much more literal), Scorsese just seems to have no feel at all for Hitchcock-style suspense.
Plot? The plot for this movie is both trite, and baroque. As narrative fiction goes it is about on the level of movies made from video games, except they don't bother to pretend. (Hey, for that matter, Silent Hill had a better plot than this movie did.) No part of this movie, not even a single one of the scenes, was believable. Most of it was just absurd. In the interest of no spoilers I have to tread lightly here. Scorsese might argue that he was trying to represent a particular plot device, but boy did THAT ever fall flat. Don't expect to make much sense, either, of the bits and pieces snatched from the real story in the original book. Plenty of scenes could have been dropped without the slightest ding to THIS mess of a plot.
How trite? Nazi doctors, concentration camp memories, "mysterious" psychiatrists, ghostly presences, all of the most hackneyed and ineffective type. Let's see: the spiral staircase from The Haunting of Hill House, the Boogey-man from Silence of the Lambs, the shower from Psycho... need I go on? And, too bad, the list of trite / iconic references here is more interesting to ponder than the actual boring manifestations of them in the movie.
Horror? I am not sure how, but Scorsese managed to make eerie, dripping, insane-asylum corridors not the least bit eerie or menacing, violent, criminally-insane killers on the loose not the least bit scary, or interesting, menacing psychiatrists with drugs in syringes not the least bit terrifying.
Character? Sorry. Not a single character was convincing or interesting. There was no chemistry between DiCaprio and Ruffalo, no sparks flying between DiCaprio and Kingsly. The great love of DiCaprio for his wife was entirely cardboard. The ooky prison-guards looked great for about five seconds and then went absolutely nowhere. What a disappointment from the guy who brought us all these rich characters in, say, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, and Taxi Driver ("Stop a car at a hundred yards -- put a bullet right through the engine block!"). The actors had nothing to work with in this movie.
Engagement? Hmmm. If you can't manage to involve your audience with Nazi death-camp images, and children being murdered, you've got to admit that is pretty lame. But, this bomb manages to make both of these devices and many others sterile and void of any emotion. You also don't care about the wronged do-gooders locked away in an insane asylum, the hero of the story, or his side-kick...
O.K., so maybe it gets two or three stars out of ten, but the hype is just too annoying for this weak effort from an excellent director.
This movie was just dumb. If you believe the hype and go to see it anyway before word gets around, don't say I didn't warn you.