Film surprises moviegoers

With not so telling previews, it was easy to assume nothing but creepy characters and gory graphics in “Shutter Island.”

But “Shutter Island” has much more to offer than cheap thrills. Try paranoia trips, guilt, temporary insanity, hallucinations and denial.

The glossed-over stares and violent, disfigured patients had people talking before the film. But it was the sophisticated plot — stretching far past the imagination, playing with taboo ideas — that had the same people silenced.

It is, after all, a Martin Scorsese film.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshall who is asked to investigate the case of a missing patient at Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane in 1954. Joined by his new partner Chuck Aule, played by Mark Ruffalo, the two begin to uncover the island’s secrets.

Daniels loses his patience quickly while interrogating the head doctor at the hospital. He picks up on tiny details that lead him to believe he has yet to hear the truth. His brilliant and swift conclusions on the case leave his partner impressed and the interrogatees curious.
As the missing patient case unravels, Daniels experiences what appear to be flashbacks. The scenes are out of context and unpredictable. In such small pieces, it is difficult to make sense of them at all — parallel to his hallucinations and bouts of paranoia.

The concept of an island, isolated and mostly undiscovered, carries the weight of eerie atmosphere. With cold, black cliffs and relentless rain, Daniels and Aule walk into a setup for failure.

“Once you’re listed as insane, everything you do is part of that insanity,” Daniels said.
People who lived in America during the 1950s often experienced paranoia because of the Red Scare, the hydrogen bomb and post-traumatic stress disorders following World War II, which are all noted in the film. Despite the perfect family lives and the development of suburbia, dark secrets still existed in many minds. “Shutter Island” rips the secrets from the dark and plays them up in a fictional thriller.

DiCaprio is slowly losing his legendary ties with “Titanic” (1997) as he continues to astound critics in films, including “The Departed” (2006), “Revolutionary Road” (2008) and “Blood Diamond” (2006).

Do not go into the theater expecting to see a creepy thriller; Do expect to become overwhelmed by

anti-climatic and overly dramatic scores, especially in the beginning.

The casting could not have been better. The breaks in the fluidity of scenes are genius. It is classic film production with brilliant actors. Forget the modern-day horror film and the poor attempts to scare audiences with gore and mutations. What really scares a person is the immeasurable capacity of the human mind. 

Be ready for anything.