Shutter Island

[El Gordo]

Snuck off recently to catch Martin Scorcese's impressive Shutter Island.

I reasoned it wasn't going to be M's cup of tea, though now I'm not so sure. It's not the horror film, or the unbearable gore fest, that some of the reviews had led me believe. But it certainly is a thriller.

Leonardo di Caprio stars as a cop sent over to the rocky island to investigate the disappearance of a female murderer from the island's fearsome lunatic asylum. (It's set in 1954, so OK to call it that I hope.)

This dark and mysterious institution is run by Ben Kingsley's Dr Cawley, himself eccentric enough to seem more like one of the inmates. The oppressive atmosphere is deepened by a spectacular hurricane which knocks out the electricity, leaving some of these brutal inmates on the run.

Di Caprio's character also seems to stray across the sanity line occasionally as he endures flashbacks from his experience as a GI who'd helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp at the end of the war.

I can't say too much more without risking giving away some of the plot, but let's just say that as his investigations continue, we start to realise that not all is what it seems. As he asks ever more awkward questions, the sense of danger intensifies, until you begin to secretly urge him to get the hell out of there. The plot spins and slaloms in spectacular style. Like all good thrillers, just as you think you know what's happening, the rug is pulled from under your feet.

Scorcese manages to create a brilliantly ominous and suspenseful atmosphere that has you anxious from start to finish. It's graphic and frequently disturbing, but not excessively so, and there's enough ingenuity thrown in as intellectual balance.

Arguably a little long at 2:20, but still, a highly satisfying, if ultimately rather melancholy, jaunt awaits.