“Shutter Island” seizes you in its clutches from the opening scene and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the final climactic scene. The film, by Martin Scorsese, boasts an outstanding ensemble cast comprised of Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, John Caroll Lynch, Ted Levine, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer, Michelle Williams, and Jackie Earle Haley.
It’s a shame the film’s release date was changed from last fall to this February, because DiCaprio’s utterly realistic and disturbing portrayal of a troubled man on the edge would have made him a definite Best Actor contender.
The premise: it’s 1954, and the setting is the ominous Ashecliffe Hospital, an insane asylum that, according to the deputy warden (Lynch), houses only “the most dangerous, damaged patients.” The sanitarium is located on a rocky, densely forested island off the coast of Boston known as Shutter Island. It was built during the Civil War as an impenetrable fortress and is now used to imprison the criminally insane. The only entrance or exit to the island is by ferry from the island’s only dock, which is where the story begins.
As the ferry slowly approaches the island, the air is filled with a palpable sense of dread and foreboding. On the ferry are U.S. Marshal and grizzled World War II veteran Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Ruffalo). They are summoned to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando (Mortimer), a delusional psychopathic killer who murdered her own three children. Incredibly, she managed to escape from her locked room and avoid detection by the guards and hospital staff, all without leaving a trace of evidence.
Right from the start, it becomes apparent that not all of the characters are what they seem. The marshals are met with hostility and evasions by the guards and psychiatrists, only forthcoming with information as they see fit.
Daniels tells his new partner that he requested this assignment because he has some unfinished business pertaining to the island. In vivid flashbacks, horrifying events from Daniels’ past are revealed: the recent death of his wife (Williams), the atrocities his platoon witnessed upon liberating a concentration camp and the inhumane experiments a previous “inhabitant” of the asylum told him were taking place.
Amidst the investigation, a hurricane strikes, and all hell breaks loose. Electrical outages allow some of the prisoners to run free, all communication with the mainland is cut off, and both marshals are in a sense prisoners themselves.
As the plot barrels forward and the tension begins to mount, Daniels’s paranoia reaches new heights. He not only begins to question his sanity, but he questions whether anyone who arrives on Shutter Island is ever allowed to leave.
Bottom Line: “Shutter Island” is a dark, intense thriller with quite a few twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the final credits.