Movie: Shutter Island; Cast: Ben Kingsley, Leonardo Di Caprio, Mark Ruffalo
There is no escaping Scorsese's sorcery! Let's just hope that sometime, sick of people celebrating his genius he'll go on to make a genuinely bad movie. But that time is definitely not now and most definitely not when he is combining with Dicaprio for the fourth time. Dspite all the sky high expectations, despite knowing for sure that this combination can never fail, if you still end up mesmerised then that speaks volumes about the quality of their latest offering.
Shocking suspense
Set in 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Di Caprio) is assigned the task of investigating the disappearance of a murderer who is presumed to have escaped from the hospital for the criminally insane, located in a remote place called Shutter Island. What starts off as a normal investigation, with little or no help from the hospital staff, including the chief psychiatrist Dr.Crawley (Ben Kingsley), soon turns into a complicated web of conspiracies, deceits, delusions, flashbacks and intermittent chills and thrills culminating with a climax guaranteed to blow your mind!
Brilliant execution
The film unfolds at an easy, languid pace, but that's what really works for it. You get that much more time to absorb the shock and marvel at how you never saw it coming, having fruitlessly worked out every possible permutation and combination trying to solve the mystery yourself. Performance wise this is one of the most challenging roles Di Caprio has and probably ever will play and the way he pulls it off, almost carrying the entire film on his shoulders single-handedly, just shows how far he has come as an actor. With “Inception” waiting in the wings this man is really on a roll!
The supporting cast too, especially Sir Ben Kingsley and Mark Ruffalo (Ted's partner) have delivered fabulous performances making the film look ridiculously perfect.
The cinematography is top draw and the background score (rightly absent in many places for better impact) adds to the sombre mood of the film, sometimes even making your heart do a little flip in those tense sequences. Just like any other thriller imparting a generous jolt of electricity in the climax, this one too will warrant a second watch. However, rather uncommonly, it is most likely that you'll still find this one flawless, that being the case, anything less than five oscar nominations for this intense drama will be a real shame. However the bigger shame is that Scorcese is still walking amongst mere mortals like us
Bottomline: Even if you are going to watch only one movie this year, make it this one.
K. ANANTH, Pursuing Chartered Accountancy
