What's Going on at Shutter Island?

After arriving home from seeing Martin Scorsese's latest film, Shutter Island, my friend, Travis, and I both felt cheated by the plot and not to mention the severe twists from the elaborated story.


The film sets in the mid-1950's where U.S. Marshall, Teddy Daniels (Leo DiCaprio), and his parter, Chuck Aule, investigate the paranormal patients at an Alcatraz-like mental institution. Both detectives become aware and very cautious to the surroundings of the facility, along with the people in it. During the stay on the island, Daniels and Aule became inevitably stuck for longer periods of time due to a heavy storm, which meant more questions along the way. The head doctors who run the facility, Dr. Cawley and Naehring (Ben Kingsly & Max von Sydow), become the primary concerns to the whole plot, along with the mysterious deadly patient. The investigation is eventually all up to Daniels to figure out what is behind and what is going on now at Shutter Island. Tensions draw deep and deeper when the feel of investigation is almost solved. Turns out you are seeing more than what you are expecting.

[I will not go into details after this ...]

I will say, however, that the film surprisingly made me jumped in quite an amount of suspenseful scenes. The movie made me felt like I was watching Stanley Kubrick's, The Shinning, for the very first time. The cinematography also gave another enhancing element to Scorsese's ideal of suspense. Everything became fast paced and slow paced mixed in its proper places in the film. There was very little musical score, which created more dramatic and suspenseful movements in the plot. The sound was incredibly loud at the theater. The sound-effects artist(s) or sound editor obviously increased the bass or primary volume. The littlest object, such as a buzzer noise, matches, or gun fire became loud enough to act as a suspense tool.

In conclusion, for those of you who haven't seen it, the film is worth going for at the theaters. There isn't that much intense, graphic violence like you see in those slasher films. Shutter Island is beyond different. By beyond, I mean more (literally) or as twisting as an M. Night Shyamalan film. My overall score for Scorsese's film is a 7 out of 10. I find this score suitable because the film surpassed my expectations with the actors, cinematography, narration. Unfortuneately, the story becomes part of the problem: All I will say about the majority of the plot is that it definitely turns your brain in many directions of the outcome of the plot. Thus requires much thinking and memory to nearly all elements in the story. Finally, I recommend those who haven't watched it watch it. If you are in for a non-slasher, good suspenseful story, then this is the one.