DVD Reviews

Shutter Island – Blu-ray Review

By Patrick Luce Jun 7, 2010, 16:49 GMT

Academy Award winning director Martin Scorsese once again teams up with Leonardo DiCaprio in this spine-chilling thriller that critics say “sizzles with so much suspense that it’s hot to the touch.” When U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) arrives at the asylum for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, what starts as a routine investigation quickly takes a sinister turn. As the investigation unfolds and Teddy uncovers more shocking and terrifying ...more

With the Blu-ray release of Shutter Island, director Martin Scorsese returns to the thriller genre with a mind-bender of a film that keeps you talking about it long after the credits roll.

The suspense-filled film is gripping and gritty, and looked amazing on Blu-ray’s 1080p format. Although the film doesn’t provide the scares the trailers teased, this is a maze of a movie with plenty of twists and turns.

With that said, I will try and get through the review without ruining any of the film’s surprises or giving any big details away – but there might be a spoiler or two in the plot description.

Shutter Island is the big screen adaptation of the Dennis Lehane (who also wrote Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone) novel with Laeta Kalogridis (Pathfinder and Battle Angel) writing the screenplay. The film features a powerhouse of Hollywood’s top actors including Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, the great Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, and Jackie Earle Haley.

The film also benefits from incredible cinematography by Robert Richardson (Inglourious Basterds, The Aviator, and Kill Bill, Vol. 1 and 2) and tight editing by Thelma Schoonmaker (The Departed and Bringing Out the Dead).

DiCaprio (in his fourth team-up with the legendary director) delivers yet another solid performance, and it is becoming more and more evident that he does some of his best work with Scorsese at the helm.

Set in 1954, DiCaprio plays U. S. Marshall Teddy Daniels who comes to Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane on Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of an inmate named Rachel. He is helped by his new partner Chuck (Ruffalo).

This is the first time that the two have worked together, and the first meeting isn’t under the best circumstances as Daniels is heaving into the toilet sea sick from the ride to the island. He is also in a bad mood since someone stole his cigarettes.

The weather is gray and this foreshadows the impending storm that will later hit the island and Daniels. As they approach Shutter Island, Alcatraz comes to mind and later the island is described in a similar way – cut off from the mainland by rough seas, cold water and even steep cliffs. It is isolated and there is only one way off of the island - which is the one dock.

Besides the hospital, there is also a lighthouse on the island. The hospital is made up of A, B, and C wards, with each building having a different function. C ward houses the ultimate of the crazies, and the audience gets a sense of foreboding with the guard’s description of C ward.

Daniels and Chuck get the lay of the grounds as they are escorted to the main building to meet the institute’s head doctor. They are also forced to remove their weapons before they are allowed to enter the hospital.

Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane is a mental compound that has been set aside for those patients that don’t do well in other mental facilities. They take the patients that no one else will handle. Daniels (who is haunted by his own ghosts) starts to access his case right away and is taken to Rachel’s simplistic room (gray walls, narrow bed) and told that she disappeared after her therapy lesson with Dr. Sheehan, who is on vacation.

Daniels begins the investigation full-force by asking all of the right questions in all the wrong ways. He is led by the coordinator of the facility, Dr. Cawley (Kingsley) – who seems to be hiding something. Daniels also seems to have an instant distrust of Cawley and his fellow therapist Dr. Naehring (Sydow).

Naehring is German which gives the audience a chance to see Daniels memories of World War II and liberating the Dachau concentration camp. Daniels was part of the unit that arrived at the camp and he personally witnessed the horrors there – which has haunted him ever since and left him a drunk. He also starts to have visions of a woman and her little girl clutching each other, frozen in the ice. The little girl appears to him and asks, “Why didn’t you save me?”

As the investigation continues, the audience also discovers that Daniels has other motives for being on the island and that he is on a personal quest for justice. It appears his wife (Williams) died in an apartment fire, and the arsonist is housed in C-ward.

Along with visions of World War II, Daniels starts to see his wife – who appears wet, bleeding and burning. As the film rolls on, it becomes clear that Teddy Daniels has some issues of his own.

As the investigation continues and the plot gets thicker, a storm erupts on the island and adds to the tension. In the midst of driving wind and rain, Teddy and Chuck are trying to solve the case of the disappearance of Rachel. They find out that Rachel killed her children. She drowned them in the lake behind her house. The drowned little girl seems to intertwine with the frozen Jewish girl in Daniels’ mind.

All the while, the island seems to become a character unto itself. Its sprouts mystery and intrigue and hints at horror. However, it fails on the creepy level. I never did get a sense of ‘Wow that is creepy!’ – or at least not in the way I did watching the film’s trailers before it was released.

I think the creepiest moment comes when they are entering the facilities and you see an inmate chained as they are doing lawn work. The inmate puts her finger to her lips and says, “Shhhhh.”

Shutter Island wasn’t quite what I expected and I think it is because the movie was wrongly marketed as something closer to a horror film. Shutter Island is not a scary movie or even what I would call a suspense thriller. It is an intellectual thriller that will keep you discussing some of its twist and turns for some time if you allow it to get into your head.

Even scenes set in Ward C and the lighthouse (where they are rumored to conduct brain experiments on the patients) are relatively tame.

Once Daniels gets to the lighthouse, the end is near and audiences’ journey is almost complete. I enjoyed how Scorsese and company set the final moments of the film in a lighthouse, but that the lighthouse seems to be a place of evil rather than safety and protection.

In my opinion, Shutter Island has the potential to be yet another masterpiece for the director, but it is a film that requires multiple viewings to fully enjoy. The film’s ending is a question mark that hangs in your head and one I find myself still debating with my wife (who watched the Blu-ray with me).With a few simple lines of dialogue, the whole movie is turned topsy-turvy and you are left with a sense of “What did he just say??”

Some of the film’s big mysteries are a little easy to spot, but it doesn’t hurt the film’s twist or make it a waste of time to watch.

Shutter Island also benefits from Blu-ray’s crystal clear picture which helps bring all the little details to light. This is a movie that excels on the format with a production and set detail that helps sell the story for the audience.

The Blu-ray also comes with some decent special features that take you into the story (Lehane explains where he came up with the idea for the novel) and its journey to the screen – where Scorsese discusses how he couldn’t put the screenplay down when he read it.

These are fairly standard features on this kind of release, but well-worth taking the time to watch. Like with some films, the features help explain what the filmmakers were attempting to accomplish with the movie and will help give you a better appreciation for it. They also made me want to watch the movie again for the things I missed on the first viewing. Also, the features have massive spoilers so it is wise to watch the movie first.

While Shutter Island might be a little light on the scares it promised in the trailers, it is a movie that is rich with great performances, a twisting story, and a director who is a master at his craft. It is well-worth taking the time to watch and the Blu-ray release is the format to enjoy the movie thanks to its level of detail in picture and sound.