shutter island (martin scorsese, 2010)

I work pretty hard to enter a movie for the first time with as little foreknowledge as possible. Still, Shutter Island is a 12-year-old Scorsese movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, so you'd think I would have at least a small sense of what it was about. Honestly, I don't know what I thought it was about, but I imagine my thoughts were a bit negative, or why did I wait a dozen years to see it? It's a great movie to see without knowing what's coming, so I got lucky.

It's stylish, but what Scorsese movie isn't? It's got a great cast, because who wouldn't want to work with Scorsese? (For the record, besides Leo, there's Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, and more.) It's got a definite aroma of Hitchcock, although the acting is better than in most Hitchcock movies, probably because Scorsese actually cares about actors. It's tricky in that Sixth Sense way where you want to watch it again, with the knowledge you've gained from the first viewing.

I'm not giving any spoilers away ... I don't care if it came out in 2010, someone out there might be like me and they deserve to see it cold. Suffice to say that Scorsese does a great job of slowly revealing the plot. Some things will come as a surprise, some you can see coming a mile away, and I suppose those will be different for each viewer. It's too long, and ultimately I'm not sure it all makes sense ... when people debate the meaning of an ending, it usually means the film wasn't all that clear to begin with. But it's hard to turn away.

This scene is a good example of how things are happening which would make more sense the second time through. There's also a quick moment that is odd enough that you might catch it the first time you see it (I admit I missed it). #953 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of the 21st century.