Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are called to Shutter Island to solve to case of the escaped patient.  The Marshalls realize the more and more they look into the disappearance of Rachel Solando is the more it seems that something else is going on.  We follow the investigation and at the same time follow our Marshalls run around this maze of a mental facility trying to make sense of it all.

People who watch a lot of movies always say that after a while they can see a pattern emerging.  People always seem to ask if there’s such a predictable nature to film why do I love to watch so many?  The truth is that I love film not just for the plot (even though that’s a part of it) but more for the elements that are distinctly film related.  Like imagery, performances and the overall grandness that cinema can be.  Shutter Island is one of those films which forget to worry about the predictability of the plot and focus so well on all the other elements of what a film can be and therefore gives a cinephile a dream experience.

The movie is packed with stellar performances.  Leonardo DiCaprio seems to always be getting better with each film he does and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.  I also seem to be noticing more and more how underappreciated an actor Mark Ruffalo is.  He did one hell of a job last year in The Brothers Bloom and Blindness.  The film is also filled with memorable supporting performances from Sir Ben Kingsley as Dr. Cawley to Elias Kotaes and Jackie Earle Haley as Laeddis and George Noyce.  From scene to scene if you don’t know the actor you will be leaving the theatre with a wanting feeling to find out who that was just making the movie a more than the average movie.

What definitely pushed this movie from the regular theatre going experience to a true masterpiece for me were two elements.  Throughout the film there we were treated, intermittently, to some truly gorgeous (and at times disturbing) dream sequences.  Going back to when Teddy was in the war and images of his dead wife.  The touch of brilliance from Scorsese just shined through as you could see how beautifully he paints the elements of the dream that are true and the parts that are over exaggerated just to show what bothers Teddy most about those memories.

The other part of the movie that just gave me a thrill was how well they handled the psycho-thriller that is this film.  Whenever you see a film like this it’s almost guaranteed that eventually we are going to have to question our protagonist’s sanity.  What makes this movie far better than the rest of the other films out there is the way it handled the character once we finally got to that point.  Most films like to stay in a space of ambiguity and leave it up to the viewer to decide which he/she prefers to believe is true.  Not that I don’t like some ambiguity from time to time but I find it quite refreshing the sincere honesty that the writer had with the audience about this aspect of our protagonist.  This is the one part of the film that makes sitting through two hours of dramatic suspense from the scene to scene really rewarding.

This movie is without a doubt the first masterpiece of 2010 that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing on screen.  It’s a must see for anyone who loves a good thriller and great performances.  It doesn’t feel like many other Scorsese films but more like he left his cinematic hang-ups at home and came to work on a new project in the best way that would serve the story.

IMDB says 8.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 67%

I say 9.0/10