Shutter Island – See It

Martin Scorsese latest movie, Shutter Island, is a dark, devious, punch-in-the face brain tease. And it’s spectacular.

This intense psychological thriller will leave you shaken, shocked, thinking and talking. The wicked atmosphere alone of this movie will leave an impression, let alone the plot and characters.

From the opening scene, where you meet a sea-sick Leonardo DiCaprio “Teddy” and Mark Ruffalo “Chuck”, to the end scene, where you’re wide-eyed and not sure what to believe, you are enthralled.

It’s based off the bestselling novel by Dennis Lehane, and set in the middle of the Cold War in 1954. DiCaprio is a U.S. Marshall with a nasty past. He’s plagued by memories of Nazis, concentration camps, and death.    

The basic idea is simple enough. DiCaprio and Ruffalo are visiting Shutter Island, which is Ashecliff Mental Hospital, to investigate the case of a missing person. But, even from beginning, it’s clear there’s more going on than what’s being said – from all characters, DiCaprio included.

So, with nothing ever as simple as one-two-three, their presence and involvement on Shutter Island gets more and more catastrophic with every scene. This is partly to do with DiCaprio’s own hidden agenda, and the general paranoia that just seems to grip the island/hospital for the criminally insane.

And between DiCaprio’s skeletons in the closet, the intense psychopaths and the enigmatic psychiatrists, the line between sanity and insanity (probably even reality and delusion) begins to blur, maybe even disappear. And suddenly, the film is playing a game with DiCaprio’s and your psyche.

Questions of ‘wait, did I see that right?’ or ‘how is this happening?’ or ‘this is happening right?’ begin to plague the mind. And with twist after twist, revelation after revelation, you begin to question if you, yourself, are even sane.

(Thank you, Scorsese, for making me question my own sanity!)

But the question is, can you figure out what’s going on before DiCaprio or any other character does?

Because there are clues, many of them. And I stand behind the theory that the filmmakers made no mistakes…but I can say no more.

Shutter Island is a fantastically gripping and brain teasing movie. It’s one of those movies that must be seen for the experience alone, like Sixth Sense.

What happens, you will never see coming.

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