Shutter Island - Can You Cope?

 (2009) ★★★☆☆

Martin Scorsese's first scary movie, as it may've been expected? No, don't get it wrong. You wouldn't expect a ghost story from a director famous for his films about people in reality like 'Taxi Driver', 'Raging Bull', 'GoodFellas', 'The Departed', etc, would you? Tell you what, it's not a crime thriller either. Believe it or not, there's nothing to be scared of, not even a bit. So just sit back and relax, and see how Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) solve the case about a person disappearing without a trace.

Yeah, it starts off with a missing person case. That's what Marshal Teddy and his partner, Chuck, are here on Shutter Island for. They're to help find Rachel, one of the patients from Ashecliff Hospital on the island, a kind of asylum for people who commit crime owing to their mental problems. They're told Rachel's a dangerous person coz she kills all of her three kids by drowning them in a lake. Later, Teddy starts to get paranoid as he suspects there's some sort of inhumane experiments on the patients going on in the lighthouse by the hospital, and for some reasons, his past (he's once an American solider fighting against the Nazis) keeps coming back to haunt him. He keeps dreaming about his wife, who tells him that Rachel is still on the island, and she herself is killed by an arsonist named Andrew Laeddis. Teddy does discover Rachel in a cave, and she after all proves Teddy's suspicions. He seems to be about to crack the case, but what really happens in the lighthouse would, like his wife warns him, be the end of him.

Shutter Island's a film about redemptions, guilty conscience, morality, mental pain and struggle. If you expect something scary or supernatural, you'll be let down. If you expect a twisty crime thriller, you'll be let down too. The ending is supposed to be of a big surprise but thanks to Leonardo's 'great acting' it is not. I wonder why he always appears to be so hysterical and overacting in front of the camera. It'd definitely be better if he could keep it down a bit.

Cruel reality would sure drive you insane if you don't learn to forget and forgive. In the crazy world like this, would you rather live like a monster or die as a good man? Seems like there's no choice huh?