20 February 2010

Shutter Island

shutter-island09-6-11

The trailers for this movie have been showing for quite a while it seems, and every time I’ve seen them I’ve gotten the impression that it’s a pretty run-of-the-mill horror/thriller thing. I didn’t find out until relatively recently that it’s a Scorcese movie, which got me very confused. Then the reviews started coming in quite favorably. Thus, I decided I must see it. So I did, and it definitely blew the trailers out of the park.

It’s most definitely a psychological thriller. It does however make some attempts to seem like a horror movie at times, with massive crescendos of music in odd places, and slightly disfigured and unsettling minor characters; it’s definitely not what the trailers make it out to be though. There is far more going on in the story than your average thriller. It might be a little predictable for some people but it will keep you second-guessing yourself, I assure you.

Beyond the story it’s really quite a beautiful film, at least at points. There are several excellent dream sequences that just flow with imagination and foreshadowing. The imagery isn’t there just to be pretty like Avatar; it’s definitely there for a good reason. There are a few noticeable flaws in some of the shots though, usually blurry edges that I assume are the product of blue-screen processes. Not a big deal.

The acting is great and the characters are well written, playing just the parts that they need to play. Leonardo DiCaprio did a nice job in the lead role and Gandhi (Ben Kingsley) did a great job as the biggest supporting character.

It’s good stuff.

No comments: