Shutter Island (2010)

Good intentions. That is what my first thought after I saw this movie. Martin Scorsese had the right idea, using old style movie making combined with a unique plot. Leonardo DiCaprio does a good job playing US Marshal Teddy Daniels. He is convincing in his paranoia, deteriorating in his mental state as the film progresses. The ending is fairly predictable but a nice surprise from the - he wakes up and the dream is over - endings. You know the kind where you go out of the theatre, thinking if it was all a dream, then why did I just waste my money in a sub-fictious reality. My biggest complaint with this movie is in the sound department. The score for the film tries to pull off Alfred Hitchcock's suspense-filled film noir era atmosphere. The overly dramatic, loud music is supposed to heighten suspense. It worked back then and in those style of movies but it makes Shutter Island feel like a cheap knock-off. Not only does the opening score try too hard, but the sound editor ups the volume unnecessarily giving the actors a cheasy entry into Ashecliff Hospital, an asylum for the criminally insane. This atmosphere ruins the first half of the movie, as the audience tries to forget that the director is putting on a dramatic thriller, not a spoof. The twist at the end definetly makes up for the predictibility of the rest of the movie, almost redeeming its earlier flaws. Good intentions, poor execution.