Adapted from a novel written by Dennis Lehane and directed by Academy Award winner Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York, The Departed), Shutter Island is essentially two stories in one, both of which are so deeply convoluted and entwined together that you are oblivious to what is really the truth till the very end.

The first story is the one that takes up the bulk of the film, and the one that Scorsese builds up like a towering house of cards, for you to weep over after he has torn it down. In that first act, two U.S. marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) have been sent to the Ashecliff Hospital for the criminally insane on a god-forsaken island off the coast of Massachusetts to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a patient.

As Teddy goes about questioning patients as well as staff such as head psychiatrist Dr John Cawley (Sir Ben Kingsley) a number of unusual events occur including sporadic dreams of his dead wife bearing cryptic messages about the presence of the missing patient as well as her murderer. This, coupled with flashbacks of his World War II experiences in Dachau and a nagging feeling that everyone is hiding a secret of their own, throws up too many questions for the viewer to think about.

Is this a simple case of a disappearing patient? Or is some Nazi-related psychological experimentation going on? What about the arsonist who murdered Teddy’s wife? Is the head psychiatrist crazy himself? All these questions add too much noise to the whole narrative and make the whole plot seem erratic at best.

Add to that the fact that everything in the movie is set to throw you off from the overly dramatic music and camera angles to Dicaprio’s permanent frown throughout the movie, all of which makes each scene feel as though something huge is going to happen at any moment, and you end up feeling mentally exhausted halfway into the movie with the amount of suspense and confusion that is inflicted.

Scorsese doesn’t bring you on a thrilling roller coaster ride packed with the intensity of previous films such as Goodfellas or The Departed. Instead, you go on this extremely long winding road that leaves you queasy and wondering why isn’t there a shortcut.

This isn’t to say that Shutter Island is an entirely bad movie; it just wasn’t Scorsese’s best. Only after watching it for the 2nd time that the sense of bewilderment which haunted me during the first screening completely went away. Probably since I could then ignore the distracting elements and appreciate how the story was so intricately weaved together. If you are able to appreciate an avant-garde film where you are robbed of the ability to tell what is real and what is not till the last minutes of the film, then Shutter Island is probably the movie for you.

Release Details:
Title: Shutter Island
Opens: Apr 5
Duration: 138 mins
Language: English
Rating: NC16
Genre: Thriller
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Syndow

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars