Shutter Island: Scorsese, Kingsley, Dicaprio…oh my!
Movie Reviews March 2nd. 2010, 6:46pmMartin Scorsese knows how to make a movie. He has a huge respect for the work and it appears, the audience. Actors want to work with him and he gets consistently great performances from them. Shutter Island is a classic psychological thriller. It is not a horror flick. It draws the viewer in and keeps you guessing throughout the movie. You think you have it figured out and it changes. The performances are brilliant. Kingsley as the head psychiatrist and Max Von Sydow as another doctor are wonderful. Dicaprio is very good, he continues to suffer from boyish good looks, which makes it hard to accept him in mature roles. The setting of a 1950’s asylum is beautifully rendered and the costumes are delightful. The music is great, as in all Scorsese films, and is skillfully used to add tension much more subtly than modern horror movies. There are images that may be disturbing to some folks, especially the back story scenes of Dicaprio liberating a concentration camp in WWII. Nothing to me was gratuitous and was meaningful in establishing context and history of the character. You can’t say very much about the movie without spoiling things for those who’ve yet to see it. See it you should. Scorsese has another hit in a genre you don’t associate with him. A fine film that is engaging and entertaining and makes you think in very Kafkaesque ways.