[_____V_____]

Originally Posted by alkytrio666

Shutter Island (2010) - 4.5/5

Come one, come all- let a real filmmaker get inside your brain and tamper around, because the experience is exhilerating. There is no McGuffin twist here, no cheap shots- what you see is what you get, but when everything is said and done you will need to experience it all over again. The best part of the movie is Scorsese's decision to take this film back to it's genre roots. The story was already set in the 1950s, but Marty uses Lewton scare tactics, a Hitchcockian camera and Clouzot's slow-burn technique to bring us an experience we simply never have today. An island is as perfect a location as any for this filmmaker's careful touch, and what starts in mystery ends that way; it's set somewhere off of Massachusetts, but this place might as well be on another planet. Robbie Robertson has organized and created one of his best scores to date, a thrilling music accompaniment that jives perfectly with Scorsese's images. Most impressive, though, is the cast- all of whom deliver jaw-dropping performances. Kingsley is mysterious and Max von Sydow is a welcome blast from the past. The real treasure, as always, is DiCaprio, an actor of tremedous power, who gives one of his most sensational performances here and whose ability literally allows the movie to work.

Originally Posted by fortunato

Shutter Island (2010)

A hulking, brooding monster of anxious filmmaking, all wild storms and unsettling scowls and crooked angles; a hand-woven tapestry of flashbacks, hallucinations, corrupted memories, and unreliable reality. DiCaprio's protagonist Teddy is a faulty flashlight in the dark, labyrinthine mess of Shutter Island.
There have been notices of influences like Fuller, Hitchcock, Kubrick, and while I think all of these are present, make no mistake that this is a Scorsese film. A singular work, no doubt, but Scorsese for sure. Playing almost giddily with twists and cliched devices, no matter when you think you have all the pieces put together, he makes this picture not about the final result, but about getting there. It's about the journey to the end. And he builds the tension, and holds us in captivity, until he releases it like a pressure cooker and the credits ooze onscreen. And I have to say, the final few minutes of this film just knocked me flat.

Fabulous acting, cinematography, set design, everything really. A maddening, wonderful cohesive picture.

Now I HAVE to see this!