The first half of Shutter Island has the dubious honour of being so bad, it made its better half shine. Martin Scorsese's latest work brings us to Ashecliff Hospital for the criminally insane. As soon as Leonardo DiCaprio's Teddy Daniels gets off the ferry and onto Shutter Island, we get excited by the mere thought of the tantalizing thrills that Scorsese teases us with, what with the deliberate cemetery, electric barbed-wire fence, and paranomic police scouts armed with scowls and guns shots. We get it. Something wicked this way comes.
Daniels and his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), surrender their firearms at the gate of Ashecliff ("federal protocol") to investigate the mysterious disappearance of child-murderess Rachel Solando. But Daniels' agenda for being on Shutter Island is more than meets the eye, and the US Marshal intends to blow the lid on what is really going on. Obviously, we're intrigued.
Alas, for a good 90 minutes, we're plyed with predictable twists and turns — comically stock characters/villains included — and we wonder, "Is this story really that obvious?" In between the excruciatingly "duh" moments, we are rewarded with the beautiful, heart-wrenching dream sequences Daniel experiences. But when the movie seems to be going nowhere, one starts questioning if $9 was worth seeing just a couple of minutes' worth of surrealistic featurettes.
Thankfully, Scorsese delivers in the end, and the final nail-in-the-coffin leaves you feeling mindfucked. Unfortunately, it came a little too late. Less patient viewers might have left the theaters by then.
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