It’s 1954, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston’s Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital. He’s been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons, but before long he wonders whether he hasn’t been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister. Teddy’s shrewd investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, more dangerous criminals “escape” in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything – his memory, his partner, even his own sanity.
Genre : Mystery/Thriller
Country : USA
Cast :
Leonardo DiCaprio : Teddy Daniels
Mark Ruffalo : Chuck Aule
Ben Kingsley : Dr. Cawley
Director :
Martin Scorsese
My opinion
A cuckoo’s nest on an island
The other actors are not the least. Mark Ruffalo plays a decent role as partner annex personal psychiatrist Ted. Personally I thought he’s more convincing in this role then as Bruce Banner in “The Avengers” and recently as Dylan Rhodes in “Now you see it“. Ben Kingsley is a class act who plays the head psychiatrist with bravado and suppleness . The has a unique view on the treatment of psychiatric “patients”. It’s masterfully to see how his deadpan expression can change from compassionate to chiding. Max von Sydow is a well established value with a finicky small contribution. In that split second, he shows how psychiatrists feel superior over other human beings. What begins as an apparently simple detective story with a search for an escaped patient, turns into a whirlwind of claustrophobic proportions. The threat and insane atmosphere accumulates systematically. The interior of Block C was soaring and fits well with the idea that the most dangerous individuals are imprisoned there. Far off from the outside world. The lighthouse is a gloomy edifice that stands out against the dark ocean and could indeed turn out to be a place to perform true inhuman experiments.
Fifty years from now, people will look back and say, “Here, at this place, is where it all began The Nazis used the Jews, Soviets used prisoners in Their Own Gulags And we -.., We tested patients on Shutter Island.“.
Well, I loved the film too, but felt there were a few plot holes. For example, if Daniels was a patient, when was he released into the mainland again? Is it mentioned in the film?
Also, here's my review of the same:
http://www.krkfilmreviews.blogspot.in/2013/11/shutter-island-2010.html
I can't remember them saying exactly when Daniels was released, but as I understood it, they released him and played this whole thing to make him believe that he is that detective and try to get him ealising that he's in fact a patient that murdered his insane wife after she murdered their children. The ending is the moment that he realises that but knows he can't live with the pain and agony, so he pretends he still thinks he's the detective and so the experiment fails and he gets a lobotomy. That's how I understood it. And you can find on this website the same explanation almost : http://screenrant.com/shutter-island-spoilers-discussion-vic-46052/
Great review by the way that follows mine in rough lines 🙂