Review of Martin Scorsese's New Horror 'Shutter Island'

The first third of Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island had me convinced that I was watching one of the director's outright best. His directing had become a little bland lately - as good as his work was in the last decade, my personal favourite The Aviator included, there wasn't much up to the standards of Taxi Driver that really made me sit up and think "what a great piece of camerawork." With Shutter Island, I was already thinking that within the first five minutes.

In terms of what he does with his camera, this is most definitely the strongest Scorsese has been since Goodfellas. Shutter Island has a charged energy amiss from the director's recent output and it seems the change of tack, stepping into the realm of the horror genre, has urged Marty to try new things. There is some work here that is experimental not just for the mainstream, but for Scorsese, too - one straightforward dialogue scene is shot behind a veil of fire, blinding flames constantly licking at the actors' faces, and our eyes, for a whole ten minutes. It's odd, that and plenty of other moments in this film, but it works, and it's fantastic to see a director continue to try new things so far into his career.

There is also one fine cast here. Ben Kingsley wisely keeps himself restrained for a change, as the sinister Dr. Cawley, and produces his best work in ages. Elsewhere, the underrated Mark Ruffalo is as good as ever, Max von Sydow is terrifying even when he isn't doing anything, and the supporting repertoire of possibly real, possibly imaginary people played by Jackie Earle Haley, Elias Koteas, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson and Michelle Williams are all worryingly convincing at being unbalanced.

And, as is now standard, DiCaprio develops his acting skills in front of our eyes once again. Whereas most actors arrive fully-formed, with performances throughout their career yo-yoing in quality, it's been a strange thing to see DiCaprio grow as a performer on screen, improving on his performances with each subsequent film. Compare him in Shutter Island - wait for the last third to really be blown away - with the over-acting tendencies he displayed on something like Titanic, and you'll see just how far the man has come.

Unfortunately, after a first class set up, with Scorsese dropping us headfirst into an intriguing mystery thriller, our interest in Shutter Island begins to lag slightly somewhere around the halfway mark. No high calibre acting or outstanding camerawork can carry a film entirely - there must be a decent script around which the cast and crew can flourish - and Laeta Kalogridis' screenplay is simply too lacklustre.

There is little character development outside of the main protagonist and many of the dialogue scenes are far too exposition-heavy. This is highlighted best in a lengthy conversation scene between DiCaprio and Clarkson - without the bravura camerawork to fall back on, Kalogridis' pedestrian script quickly becomes tiring, and it's obvious just how reliant the film is on Scorsese to keep things exciting. With a number of drawn out one-on-one discussions taking place midway through the film, this is exactly where Shutter Island begins to drag. The acting remains stellar, but it takes a true pair of master performers to make ten minutes of endless exposition interesting.

It's in many of those scenes that Scorsese's long-time editing partner, Thelma Schoonmaker, should have intervened. The Oscar-winning editor worked wonders on films like Raging Bull, surely she could have trimmed some of Shutter Island's more pointless dialogue scenes to bring it down from its far too-long 138 minute running time.

What is most remarkable about Shutter Island is how well the film has gone down with audiences, drawing in the biggest crowds of Scorsese's career. It won't be easy to digest for most cinemagoers - the scenes of reality and fantasy are increasingly hard to differentiate, the characters are mostly unsympathetic ciphers while the dream sequences, especially those set in Dachau concentration camp, are more than mildly distressing. Those seeking their horror fix (horror by today's predictable standards, anyway) will be disappointed, too - Shutter Island isn't clear-cut scary, but creepy, ominous and full of dread.

And 'dread' is really the key word here, as Scorsese lays it on thick. Right from the opening, in which we see Daniels violently vomiting in the bathroom of the ship towing him and his partner through a dense fog to Shutter Island, the film proves to be some kind of masterclass in creating unease. Shutter Island is one of the few films where it would be a compliment to call it the most dreadful one of the year.

Without giving anything away, Shutter Island doesn't deserve but require more viewings. The plot is such a pleasurable riddle, I know I will be seeing it at least one more time just to make sense of it all. But there is so much more to recommend it other than the story - the performances are superb, the musical score (arranged by Robbie Robertson) is suitably unsettling and, if you're a Scorsese fan, you have to see what he does on his first foray into horror.

That said, it's no masterpiece - although it will be remembered as a film that featured some of Scorsese's best work, Shutter Island won't be remembered as one of his best. It's too long and lazily written, but manages to remain an intriguing and often horrifying mystery thriller. However, the biggest mystery is still unsolved - if you're Martin Scorsese, surely every screenwriter in Hollywood is lining up to work with you, so why choose the scripter behind Pathfinder and Oliver Stone's Alexander to write your movie?