Shutter Island Review

Considering that I am in PSYC 245: Abnormal Psychology and I already loved movies like Shutter Island, I simply had to see it. But before I begin my review, note that this will be a spoiler.

Given the director creativity and acting, I would definitely recommend this movie but I do not believe it will stand the test of time. While Leonardo DiCaprio fans consider all of his movies excellent (ironically so do I, he truly has talent), he has other monumental films which will outlive this one. Basically, this was a well done version of (but still inferior to) Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind.

So the premise of the plot begins in 1954 with U.S. Marshall Ted Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) arriving on Shutter Island -- a mental asylum for the criminally insane -- to figure out the mystery of an escaped patient. Throughout the film, they have brief moments such as an actor’s voice without the actor’s mouth moving, which give mini-clues to suggest that reality is not what it seemed. Although I never noticed this, my mother thought that the beginning looked more like an old-time style movie with the car standing still and the background flying by, which implies that this is all in Ted’s head. Throughout the movie multiple plot twists leads to the audience to believe in a huge government conspiracy to experiment on the patients in the hope of creating the perfect solider. In a well timed scene, the audience begins to question the sanity of Ted Daniels as the psychiatrists attempt to show how Ted Daniels was already a patient in Shutter Island and created an alter ego as a defense mechanism. The audience is not sure which reality to believe: the conspiracy of Ted Daniels or the reality of the psychiatrist. In the end the movie follows the same plotline as A Beautiful Mind and we realize that Ted Daniels the U.S. Marshall never existed.

While the movie is excellent if you have nothing else to watch, on an originality criterion the movie does not impress. For starters the overuse of flashbacks, the similarity of Ted Daniels and the escaped patient, and the melodramatic cinematography gives away the ironic twist -- by the time it finally arrives. While Leonardo plays his part with all of his incredible talent and the film is directed by the credible Martin Scorsese, the movie just loses too many points through its grotesque attempt to create an original psychological thriller. Yet I must give credit to the psychological aspects of the film, the film follows the DSM criterion for Paranoid Schizophrenia to the fine line. Hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and other parts are excellent displays of Paranoid Schizophrenia. For an psychology student, I appreciated this a lot. Final judgement: 7 out of 10.

If you are bored and this Russell Crowe is an amazing actor (who doesn’t) then I would recommend A Beautiful Mind because that movie is a truly amazing film of this genre.

Blog #(X+1) completed for ENGL 102.