A very different film for Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, The Departed), Shutter Island proves to be cinematically interesting, but can drag on a bit. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond, The Departed), Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac, Collateral), Ben Kingsley (Schindler's List), Max von Sydow (The Exorcist) and Jackie Earle Hayley (Watchmen)...

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Drama is set in 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island.

Let's not make any rash decisions here -- this is a very good film, but it has problems the audience would think that a director like Martin Scorsese would've seen in the making of Shutter Island. The positives first, this is a well-acted (especially of Mark Ruffalo) drama/thriller with a clever story that touches on so many themes with psychology and humanity in general, but unfortunately the twist is half-predictable -- the trailer for the film made the ending fairly obvious. Studios need to re-think advertising campaigns.

The cinematography is sublime and the dark, gloomy effects of the lighting work tremendously throughout the film. The biggest problem is that the film drags on a lot, mainly in the centre-section of the film and I found the music to be terribly intrusive some of the time (but not all the time) -- it worked in some areas, and in others it was so out of place. As most critics have pointed out, its hard to talk about this film without giving too much away, but here is the bottom-line, it is a Scorsese film, so its is wonderfully made (mostly) and very well acted with great characters, but it becomes too bogged down on the one topic for most of the film, as well as being partly predictable. Still quite clever, and worth the watch.

Rating: 7/10

Review by Fraser Green