'Shutter Island': Rats, Hurricanes, Even Moral Questions

Director Martin Scorsese’s latest offering has thousands of black rats, a cinematic recreation of the concentration camp at Dachau, a hellacious storm and a cameo by a Robert De Niro look-alike wearing a hideous gash across three-quarters of his face.

   In other words, “Shutter Islandâ€� is an over-the-top thriller that, in spite of itself, is entertaining.

   Scorsese stalwart Leonardo DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a federal marshal sent to investigate the disappearance of a woman (Emily Mortimer) from an asylum for the criminally insane on a remote island off the Massachusetts coast.  The year is 1954, postwar and Cold War.

   Things get weird from virtually the opening frames: A menacing old woman on the prison grounds signals to Daniels by putting her hands to her lips as if to shush him. Daniels has uncontrollable dreams and flashbacks to his own past, including the liberation at Dachau and the murder of his wife (Michelle Williams) involving a mysterious assailant named Laeddis (Elias Koteas, the De Niro doppelgänger).

   Daniels and his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) seemingly get stonewalled in their investigation by the chief psychiatrist on the island, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and his sidekick Dr. Naehring (the venerable Max von Sydow), who claim to be using humane methods and newly available psychotropic drugs in an attempt to rehabilitate the violent offenders on the island.

   Then comes that storm and encounters with the most deranged prisoners deep in the bowels of a Civil War-era fort, with the rats, and with a mysterious woman in a cave (local resident Patricia Clarkson). Daniels comes to believe that something very different is going on. Think “Manchurian Candidateâ€� crossed with a bit of “The Sixth Sense.â€�

   Scorsese could be rightly accused of hitting us over the head with a blunt instrument. Every scene, every element in the movie, especially the soundtrack, is played for maximum effect, sometimes to the edge of absurdity.

   Nevertheless, Scorsese manages to keep the tension taut, building to a mind-bending climax, if slightly deflationary denouement. The cast is uniformly good, and even DiCaprio, who has rarely been able to act his way out of a paper bag, does a credible job.

   And while the film also has much too much talking — at times I thought I was watching “My Dinner with Andre, Shutter Island Editionâ€� — Scorsese does challenge us to think about meaty questions like reality and morality. It’s a lot better than the simplistic storytelling of something like, say, “Avatar.â€�

 

   “Shutter Islandâ€� is rated R for disturbing violent content, language and some nudity.  It is playing at the Cineroms in Torrington and Winsted.

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