The Story:

A prisoner has disappeared from her cell after being locked up for the night. With only one way out, and no witness accounts it seems as though she must have disintegrated through the walls. With no logical explanation for the woman’s absence a Detective, Teddy Daniels is summoned to analyze. The detective, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, unknown to his partner has other motives to being on the island which are linked to his past. Daniels tries to flee from the Island only to be forced to take shelter within the confines of the Asylum as a powerful hurricane bares down on the island. Shutter Island’s staff, and inmates keep hinting at things regarding Daniel’s past that keep both him, and it’s audience confused. The acting was great, everyone seems to blend in with their bleak environment as the story unfolds, but the story just didn’t grab me. I found that Daniel’s objective was constantly changing between a specific inmate, ghosts, the staff, and the island itself as the witnesses lead him down the path to his eventual realization when everything comes together in the finale. With the movie taking so many different directions, as a viewer we are wandering just as blindly as Daniels.

Effects/Gore:

The island is a great locale for the story, giving the feeling that it in itself is character.

Final Headcount:

The movie has one of those obvious twist endings that sits in the back of your head the whole time just so when it happens at the end, you can jump up and yell “I knew it!” I’m tired of these movies, I understand it was based on a book, and the book is probably better at setting up the scenario, but when the answer has so little to do with the much more interesting questions the characters are faced with it’s hard to not feel cheated. A twist ending is an overused tool, one that usually only works once, and more often than not makes the film as a whole forgettable.