Martin Scorsese is the greatest living film-maker and by watching Shutter Island, you realise that even with material as conventional as this he is able to formulate a pressure cooker of a film with art house sensibilities that immediately drips with foreboding and makes you feel uncomfortable. It isn't perfect and during the first half hour it is apparent that in lesser hands it would fail to be more than generic but somehow it elevates above middle-of-the-road and becomes something equally frightening and disturbing.
On the back of this I think Scorsese should throw caution to the wind and do a full blown horror. Think when Kubrick did The Shining. The thought gives me an erection.
I would be lying if I said I didn't see the ending coming a mile off (I mean seriously, how many times have you seen a resolution built within a character's psyche?) but it still felt shocking and packed enough of an emotional punch to make the journey there worthwhile.
To this day, a new Scorsese film is a cause for celebration and that, in the days where Lucas lost it ten years ago, Coppola hasn't made anything decent since Dracula and even Spielberg seems to be loosing his spark, is no small feat.
Shutter Island is excellent. It manages to be confrontational whilst following generic plot conventions. Scorsese is still god.
4/5
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