Mental Case
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Ben Kingsley
2.5 popcorns
A brooding, hard-nosed and unrelentingly intense thriller, ‘Shutter Island’ is a virtual textbook of genre filmmaking. What it lacks, however, is the mark of the master filmmaker.
Director Martin Scorsese parlayed his love of film noirs and creepy thrillers into a body of work that is hardly matched in American cinema. ‘Shutter Island,’ while sufficiently creepy, is no more than an outlier on his esteemed résumé.
Set in Massachusetts in 1954, the picture finds volatile federal marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), heading to a notorious mental institution to investigate the escape of a female patient. The asylum is located on Shutter Island, an enormous compound overseen by the eerily poised Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and his team of equally diabolical psychiatrists. When Daniels and his partner realize the physicians and the orderlies appear to be hampering their investigative efforts, they become suspicious and enact a plan to expose the secrets of the mysterious island.
As the administrators of the institution become more threatening, Daniels’ traumatic past is incrementally brought to light by gorgeous, occasionally surreal flashbacks that toy with his sanity. His belief is that some psychotropic drug poisoned him. This only feeds his paranoia, plunging him deeper into a maddening frenzy.
The fourth teaming of the legendary director Scorsese and screen icon DiCaprio is a grand disappointment. However, the melding of marvelous talents is nevertheless a joy to behold. Like Robert De Niro – Scorsese’s former favorite leading player – DiCaprio is commanding yet vulnerable, powerless over his primal instincts and emotions. Perhaps the most compelling actor in the cinema today, DiCaprio again demonstrates why he warrants consideration as the De Niro of his generation.
In transposing Dennis Lehane’s novel from page to picture, Scorsese evokes the exaggerated density of the thriller but fails to streamline the narrative. The first two acts are undeniably engrossing, even captivating. Yet in the final 30 minutes, the picture devolves into a generic, predictable mess. Scorsese should be above films that rely on a barrage of absurd plot twists to make a point, which makes ‘Shutter Island’ all the more frustrating. The twists may be plausible, but the manner in which they are presented – in the form of unbearable speeches that last an eternity – is utterly deplorable.
Scorsese’s first decidedly terrifying thriller since ‘Cape Fear’ (1992) bears the director’s signature style solely in the depiction of an alpha male struggling with his uncontrollable impulses. The first 100 minutes are certainly gripping, but what follows is an aggravatingly common and clichéd thriller.
The acting, though, is of the highest order. Ruffalo, Kinglsey and Williams are dependably outstanding, while Emily Mortimer and the ageless Max Von Sydow shine in brief yet chilling supporting roles. These remarkable performers manage to keep the film somewhat grounded while the plot becomes overwrought with forced, inconceivable twists. Still, their efforts ultimately drown in the convoluted climax.
When Scorsese releases a new picture, films like ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976), ‘Raging Bull’ (1980), ‘The King of Comedy’ (1983) or ‘The Departed’ (2006) are expected. Not a passé thriller that might as well have been made by John Polson (‘Swimfan,’ ‘Hide and Seek’). Scorsese leaves us with a nice slice of genre filmmaking, though it hardly echoes the quality of a typical Scorsese film.
Published on February 24, 2010 at 12:00 pm
