A friend of mine is pretty into Martin Scorsese and his impressive filmography; I myself have only seen his “The Departed” and “Shutter Island”. The Departed is a fun movie: plenty of violence and swearing, very little brains. Those two movies seem to describe Scorsese’s career from only one ‘era;’ the DiCaprio era rather than the DeNiro era. I think DiCaprio is a fine actor, and Shutter Island took fair advantage of this. My problem with the movie is everything else aside from the acting.
This Scorsese-fanatic really talked up Shutter Island for two weeks up until I saw it. He said that it’s the type of movie that if he were an intelligent screenwriter who could write complex stories, he would write. That’s not only high praise from somebody who I typically agree with, but it’s also an indication that this guy has put a lot of thought into how he felt about the movie.
 I sat in the theatre as “Shutter Island” began to play. I didn’t really realize it, but the whole time I watched the movie I was trying to figure out what was going on.
I had a pretty good idea from the start, just based on the advertisements and things I had heard from people, but the rather interesting red herrings led me to believe that my premise was incorrect. Unfortunately I was right and the talk about secret military experiments was totally unimportant. The problem I have with Shutter Island is not in that the red herrings were unimportant, but that they were there and almost the entirety of the movie. “Shutter Island” is only here to play a mind-game with you. It certainly had me going, like I said I tried to figure it out as it was going on. When the film ends and you find out the truth, it seems that everything that just happened in the movie is rendered unimportant.
Rather than try to explain why this didn’t work for me, I’ll explain to you why a different movie did work for me. Jacob’s Ladder is a movie that works very similarly to Shutter Island. Released in the early 90’s, Jacob’s Ladder tells the story of Tim Robbins and his crazy journey as he is haunted by demons after a terrible accident in Vietnam. You are never really sure as to what is real and what is inside of the main character’s crazy mind, but at the end of the movie, everything makes sense, and the film ties beautifully together in terms of theme and narrative. The red herrings involving secrect military experiments can be easily explained away through a few satisfying ways (the director left many areas of the movie left up to the viewer’s interpretation) and the demons have thoughtful, philosophical purpose.
In other words, “Jacob’s Ladder” makes you think. If you’ve ever thought about death and the afterlife, “Ladder” will affect you in some way. It’s out there for a purpose, and that purpose has to do with coming to grips with dying, and making peace with the demons in your life. “Shutter Island” says nothing; it comes off more as an extended episode of “The Twilight Zone”, with a terrible ending that makes the rest of the movie worse. Of course, without the ending there is no story – the entire movie leads up to the reveal, much like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. People nowadays hate Shamhammer, which is disappointing for one, but it also confuses me as to why people responded so well to “Shutter Island”
There was no drama in the story because there was no character. There was no character because the twist ending/mind-game story necessitated it. When the movie begins to show signs of promise in this department you take notice – the flashbacks to World War II are quite gripping, but are ultimately irrelevant by the end. The ending in fact is really the main problem.
One trailer mentioned that it was one of the best endings in recent memory, even in a memory that included 2007’s “The Mist” or 2003’s “Oldboy”. “Oldboy” was also similar to Shutter Island, but had a lot more going for it other than the twist. The twist threw your perception of the character into question (just like in “Shutter Island”) but there was more to the character than that! Ultimately, Shutter Island seems to be a simply empty movie, with nothing but the twist. “Oldboy” had sweet action and hard-hitting, disturbing visuals that make a memorable movie. “Shutter Island” has mystery, and then it ends.
If you want to go see “Shutter Island”, go see “Jacob’s Ladder” instead. Ladder is a haunting, thought-provoking movie that is a mind-game, but also successfully emotional. It takes its time to build character, and by the end, you feel good when the character gets to where he’s going, no matter what you believe. “Shutter Island” on the other hand is a mildly entertaining ride – in that department it’s a step down from “The Departed” – but because it isn’t here to entertain but to trick, it ultimately fails. There are simply better movies out there: solid acting and outstanding production values make a pretty movie, but ‘pretty’ doesn’t always translate to ‘good.’