Shutter Island

At the behest of my good friend and fellow Stephen King.com Message Board member Joe, I went out and got Shutter Island so I could finally give it a good watch.

I think I have made it abundantly clear that I am a big fan of Martin Scorsese to a lot of folks.  If I haven't then I'd like to re-state that I am a huge fan of Martin Scorsese and it's thanks to Martin Scorsese that Leonardo DiCaprio is a part of my go-to list of actors when it comes to movies. 

The two of them have combined for some great movies and Shutter Island ranks right up there with the best of them. And, no, I wasn't confused a bit by this movie. I was intrigued, but never confused. That space in my skull where my gray matter resides is anything but vacuous (although you could argue that the same isn't true of certain characters in this movie). In fact, you could say that this movie and I were a perfect match. *wink, wink*

While I wouldn't consider this my favorite Scorsese film of all time (I'd have to think on that one now although on this older list I placed The Departed as being my favorite), I do believe that Scorsese managed to showcase enough of that magic to once again confirm for me just why Scorsese is one of my go-to directors. 

Martin Scorsese is certainly known for his gangster films, but that doesn't make him a one-trick pony. Not only has he taken the dive into the music world with films like New York, New York, The Last Waltz, and Shine A Light, but he has also held his own with borderline horror films like his remake of Cape Fear (remember that one?) and this new-ish unsettling movie Shutter Island. 

Not for the first time in a Scorsese movie I saw shades of Hitchcock, but Shutter Island tries very hard to not be an obvious one-note movie. At times I wondered if it was trying too hard, but it typically held just the right amount of swagger to please both the older crowd and the slightly-less-older crowd, I think. I don't think a lot of people my age will be won over by this movie because it doesn't have a catchy song like Frozen does, though. It doesn't feature a superhero, either. Sorry, that was a bit, mean-spirited, wasn't it?

Shutter Island is a movie fan's movie and I certainly appreciated it. It makes me want to watch older movies of the film noir type that inspired it. The ones I haven't managed to see yet. 

Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, and Mark von Sydow were excellent in this movie. Especially Leo since this movie's success relies solely on his ability to sell his character, but it's always nice to see Max von Sydow in a movie worthy of his talent, too. Mark Ruffalo, on the other hand, seemed kind of vanilla to me although Mark Ruffalo's role itself was designed to be vanilla. So by that logic you could say that Ruffalo was the perfect man for the job. 

Scorsese still has it and I think he always will. The man knows what works for him and even when he does something risky like Shutter Island or The Wolf of Wall Street, he always manages to find some sort of success with what he does. At least as far as I'm concerned, anyway.