IMDb #203 Review: Shutter Island (2010)

Source: Wikipedia

A brilliant psychological thriller set on an island asylum for the criminally insane during a raging hurricane? As unlikely as a successful collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. That is, entirely expected.

Lucky Leo stars as a scary-looking U.S. Marshal named Teddy investigating a murderess’s disappearance. A typical locked-room mystery transmogrifies into an experiment in gaslighting. Baffling evidence accumulates until audience members doubt their own sanity. Or should. Unfortunately, I had the ending spoiled for me. Savvier viewers might be able to guess it. The less you know going in, the better.

The question becomes, which is scarier, the patients or the doctors? The hotshot psychiatrist lives in a lovely house, displays disturbing artwork, and affects a convincing German accent. This being the 1950s, the World War II veteran hero rankles at being psychoanalyzed for his cutting remarks and praised for “impressive defense mechanisms.”

Those defense mechanisms/survival instincts break down in sleep. The dazzling dream sequences close the gap between reality and fantasy, practical effects and CGI. Bodies frozen in ice at Dachau; gunning down Nazi prison guards; his wife burning alive. The titular island’s creepy-ass abandoned (?) lighthouse.

As the investigation goes south, there wafts talk of psychotropic drugs, transorbital lobotomies, government conspiracies, and a crazy-smart hobo lady babbling in a sea cave.

Then the ending shanks you in the gut with a rusty scalpel. Everything suddenly makes sense, and I wish it didn’t. The final shot, with all its implications, is seared into my retinas.

Dark. Intense. Worth your time.

138 minutes.