shutter island

The story begins with U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner (Mark Ruffalo) arriving to a prison-like island-based facility for the mentally deranged to investigate the mysterious disappearance of an inmate (make that “patient”). It’s 1954, and the shifting theories of popular psychiatry are playing themselves out among the facilities’ powers-that-be, played by Ben Kingsley (the benevolent one) and Max von Sydow (the inhumane one). Daniels’ investigation gives way to his own complex conspiracy theories about what really happens on Shutter Island, and after a while, no one can be trusted as the original mission is all but forgotten in a downward spiral of upending information, false leads, and bizarre interactions. The audience is shuffled from one long-winded exchange after another, some of it pertinent information, much of it horse crap. All the while, the nightmarish flashbacks and environments of the film keep everything on edge. Scorsese has never been one for tying everything up with a nice bow at the end, but in this case, after two and a half hours of being told one thing, then the opposite, then back again, and ending up nowhere, it’s easy not to be satisfied this time.

download: