Let’s do the Twist

Shutter Island – Martin Scorsese

A weekend starts these three reviews, with seeing a film on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, i start with the psychological horror film Shutter Island, staring Leonardo Di Caprio and directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese. A film not seen in his line of work, a complete departure to what he has made, but it’s a welcomed change. I would never have expected Scorsese to have made this film. Looking at The Departed to this, you can see the director has been thinking about trying different genres, trying to open audiences to more varied plots and storylines, unfortunately, this plot, and especially the twists, can be seen from a mile away. The ending is obvious, because the audience have seen it before. Is the lead character really crazy or not. But what makes this film great, is the performances from Leonardo Di Caprio and Ben Kingsley, and special mention to a favourite actor of mine, Mark Ruffalo, they all sell the plot, they make the characters believable and they add a new twist to the genre.

The film revolves around Leonardo Di Caprio visiting an island for the mentally insane, called Shutter Island, he’s been called to investigate a missing inmate and unravels a conspiracy, or so he thinks. I can’t give much away, but you’ll soon realise what happens or what will happen. It’s not as hard to understand say like Lost, where shit will happen but from what direction! I wouldn’t class this film as a horror either, but many people have. It wasn’t that scary from the way the trailers have made it to be. There is a couple of disturbing images like bodies and drowning people, but it’s not the standard horror affair. You can defiantly see the influence of classic Hollywood cinema with Alfred Hitchcock and his horror films playing a part in how it affects the audience through emotion and the trick of not revealing until the end, where the pieces fit together to form the whole puzzle. Also the influence of Stanley Kubrick is used here in the music, which is top draw, a great feature in creating the eerie Shutter Island.

Overall, a good film, with strong performances, great direction, powerful music but the ending is obvious and not as scary as you may think it to be. A good film for a Friday too, but the next film, Kick-Ass will be a favourite of being the film of the weekend. Who knows, maybe Clash of the Titans will come out of nowhere and show the rest a right hander that will knock them out of the park. How many sayings and metaphors in that sentence? Too many!

7/10

Simon Childs