Shutter Island Review

Whoa. I’m always up for a movie that makes you think. The air of mystery in Shutter Island drives the plot the whole movie, keeping you on the edge of your seat pondering what could be the resolution. This is not a good movie to have any sort of spoilers given out because, while I think it would have value watching it multiple times, it’s got an excellent vibe for the first time viewer, which I was. So I’m going to flip the order around and start out saying: Go watch it. This movie’s good. And if for some reason you’ve got 150 movies in your Netflix DVD Queue you think could top this film, well, here’s why you’re probably wrong, without any spoilers.

Let’s talk genre. Film-noir, while this is a genre I haven’t gotten into, if all film-noir movies had this good writing and plot execution, I’d be ready to grab some popcorn for an all night marathon. I feel like there’s a lot of places to go with this genre, and the classic Film-Noir genre revived in the Neo-Film-Noir era is a fresh pacing in film with such a large drop in popularity around the sixties. With this great writing it adds to the genre as a whole, while being true to the time period in which they were first set, which I felt was a nod to the original works of art, with similar styles of dialogue, clothing, setting, and technology present. I was surprised to see Film-Noir listed as Shutter Island’s primary genre, as it had been talked up as horror to me. While I don’t see it as a horror film, I would say it is a suspense thriller in addition to film-noir. These two elements, however, only added to the gritty crime drama unfolding before the viewers that had deep dialogue while still pacing the plot quickly enough that no one loses interest.

On to themes! The first theme is man versus society. A man and his new partner go onto an entirely enclosed island of psychopaths. Creepy stuff. But these psychopaths are living in a mental institution that is portrayed as a community. This community is the society our main hero works so hard to fight against. Everyone on the island lives in their own world: refusing to cooperate with common practice, ignoring laws, and skewing treatment of the criminally insane. The marshal and his partner struggle to uncover the escape of one of the patients in the community, who is perhaps one of the most insane excluding Ward C, an area isolate from the rest of the community for the people the outside world would have addressed as dangerously hopeless. It is difficult for the two cops to face such an odd environment while keeping their cool.

This theme also predominantly focuses on man versus himself. This becomes more prevalent as the movie goes on, where the presence of the insane and the protagonist’s sickness start building up on themselves. We are given an insight to the mind that feeds back on his memories in World War II and those of his deceased wife, as well as a look at his mental ability to solve such an unorthodox case being pushed to its maximum potential.

I had wanted to see this movie for quite some time. I worked hard to make sure nothing was spoiled for me, and the experience was great. However, whether something’s been spoiled, or you’ve seen it, go out and rent this movie for some fine works, and some good stuff to think on. This movie seems like it could be one where a second perspective from a more omniscient view could be quite enlightening. Like I said before, this movie is good. I’d give this a 4.25 out of 5 patients.