• It is a gorgeous film—full stop.  It has an engaging narrative—and unlike their first collaboration in 2002 with Gangs of New York– features a terrific lead performance from DiCaprio- who is in every scene
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is leonardo-dicaprio-shutter-island-1024x427.jpg
unlike their first collaboration in 2002 with Gangs of New York– features a terrific lead performance from DiCaprio- who is in every scene
  • As we start out the film pulls us in immediately as we’re in medias res on a rocky boat heading for an ominous island
  • No actual musical score- pieces pulled from other material—but the main theme certainly sounds like Hans Zimmer’s score for Inception (which oddly enough is another 2010 film starring DiCaprio—not sure how this happened).
  • The set-up feels like Fincher’s The Game meets Nolan’s Memento with a bit of Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor thrown in. How good does that sound? It’s pulp—but so is The Departed, Cape Fear and other films in the Scorsese oeuvre.
  • a stunner of a low-angle Wellesian shot of Ruffalo, DiCaprio and John Carroll Lynch
a stunner of a low-angle Wellesian shot of Ruffalo, DiCaprio and John Carroll Lynch
  • sumptuously shot by Scorsese and DP Robert Richardson (with production design by Scorsese go-to Dante Ferretti)—standout jaw-droppers include the landscape shot of the lighthouse, the papers falling in the flashback of the WWII Nazi’s office, the hallway filled with Green (Scorsese’s use of green as Eden and red as Hell) and the silhouette shot in front of the chain link fence in the rain below—all of these make for one of the single most exquisitely photographed on the wall at a museum films of 2010
sumptuously shot by Scorsese and DP Robert Richardson (with production design by Scorsese go-to Dante Ferretti)
All of these make for one of the single most exquisitely photographed on the wall at a museum films of 2010
the hallway filled with Green looks like the bathroom in The Aviator (Scorsese’s ongoing use of green as Eden and red as Hell)
standout jaw-droppers include the landscape shot of the lighthouse,
  • when the beauty of the film isn’t taking your breath away you have performances by some of the best actors working from Ruffalo (yes underused here), Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, and Patricia Clarkston just to name a few.
  • For DiCaprio this is partly like his Howard Hughes role (Teddy’s backstory is loaded, lots of baggage and highly emotive) and partly like a Bogart role as he’s a grizzled tough detective.
  • Another sign it’s a great film is how rewatchable it is even if you know the twist ending. Many films of this nature don’t hold up. I will admit though, the extensiveness of this “role play” hoax makes for a leap of faith here when judging how well this narrative works or not. It’s a lot to swallow with the number of people involved, scaling rocks, etc but again we don’t fully know what’s real and what isn’t and again, DiCaprio is all in here- selling hard and it works.
  • A Highly Recommend top 10 of the year quality film