Scary Scorsese

Shutter Island

**1/2 out of ****

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Patricia Clarkson and Michelle Williams

Running time: 138 minutes

Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel Shutter Island ranks among the finest mysteries I’ve read. It’s palpably exciting, supremely entertaining and contains a whopper of an ending.

It’s a sensational whodunit and its adaptation is helmed by a visionary, Martin Scorsese. Yet despite the director’s best efforts, the film version is marred by storytelling hinderances, including – shockingly – a near absence of mystery.

Leonardo DiCaprio must love his Boston accents. After starring as an undercover Beantown cop in Scorsese’s Oscar-winning The Departed, his voice is back to form here, portraying US Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels.

Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), have arrived at the isolated Shutter Island (home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane) to investigate the disappearance of a patient named Rachel Solando.

Shutter Island is like Alcatraz, except the inmates are criminally insane mental patients and the eerie hospital wards seem to have been designed by David Lynch.

But something’s afoot. It may be the missing woman herself, who has nowhere to run to. Shuttler Island is entirely removed from the mainland and has steep, rocky cliffs outlining its terrain. There’s also only one way out, and it's via the ferry.

(Cue Robbie Robertson’s ominous cello-heavy soundtrack, one that hints that the shark from Jaws is swimming nearby.)

Or it could be something grislier. Daniels and Aule get odd signals from the hospital’s head physician, the pipe-smoking Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley), and an even creepier German scientist (Max Von Sydow). What are these old hospital henchmen up to with these crazy patients?

The plot thickens. Our protagonist has taken up this case to find the man - a patient at Ashecliffe named Andrew Laeddis - who murdered his wife (Michelle Williams, shown in flashback).

There are a few fine mysteries within Shutter Island. However, unlike the novel, which revealed the clues cryptically, the film accentuates each hint with such blaring obviousness, those who’ve never cracked the spine of a whodunit will likely predict the outcome by the hour mark.

Another mystery to grapple with is how editor extraordinaire Thelma Schoonmaker (Scorsese’s go-to cutter, and a three-time Oscar winner) could put the film together so clumsily.

Schoonmaker doesn’t make the shots flow. Instead, they seem to pile on top of each other.

There are many technical glitches within the far-too-predictable film, but they are almost entirely saved by Scorsese's virtuoso performance.

No, he didn’t act in his own picture. Regardless, he's far and away the star of Shutter Island.

The film is a freak-show full of glorious pyrotechnics, an unabashed throwback to a variety of genres, and a feast of nightmarish, sometimes unrelenting, sequences and images. And Scorsese is the ringmaster behind it.

It’s thrilling to watch him shroud the film with Hitchcockian tones of gloom, unease and paranoia. Even while homaging that Master of Suspense (and a few others along the way), he manages to insert classic B-movie staples. Foul weather! Rats! Scary (criminally insane) monsters grabbing the protagonist as he leads himself down a darkened corridor! And he's armed with just a box of matches!

Performance-wise, DiCaprio is quite good, but he’s miscast. He’s riveting as an intelligent, if highly paranoid detective, but it’s tough to entirely buy the baby-faced star as a 40-something widower, frequently haunted by his experiences during World War II.

The supporting cast fares better. Patricia Clarkson and Jackie Earle Haley – both under-appreciated character actors – are scene-stealers.

In its film form, Shutter Island pales next to Lehane’s throat-grabbing bestseller. Even without the technical miscues and simplistic storytelling, it's essentially a throwback to the overcooked B-pictures and paranoia flicks of the 1940s and 50s.

It’s schlock. But with no shortage of flair from Scorsese and his fine ensemble, it’s excellently performed, stylishly orchestrated, compulsively watchable schlock.