Shutter Island

Review By Phil Gray

Teddy is a head case, a regular wacko, I’m warning you in advance. Shutter Island, the book, is carved into four parts; Rachel (Day One), Laeddis (Day Two), Patient Sixty-Seven (Day Three) and The Bad Sailor (Day Four). Just in case you can’t count, even while using your fingers, the splitting of the book means that the story is set over four days. Four days full of mayhem and wandering around an island investigating the disappearance of Rachel Solando. Oh, yes this seems like a normal day at the office for U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels. With him tracking vanishing women, being hit by storms, scaling cliffs, hanging out with beady eyed rats and having strange dreams about his wife.

His wife, by the way, is a loon too. Not that I’m giving much away by saying that, it’s kind of obvious from the start that you shouldn’t leave her anywhere near a cutlery draw. I quite enjoyed this book by Dennis Lehane, it’s not something I’d normally read as it doesn’t have any beeping robots in it. The plot is a bit holey though, especially when it gets past Teddy having a seizure. The way that Teddy is manipulated at the end is a bit dumb too. Nobody wants to tell him outright what is going on, even though in my opinion it would be in the best interests of all parties involved. Not that I’m a qualified psychiatrist, it just annoys me when people don’t tell the truth. There’s plenty of porky pie weirdness going on in this book.

Leonardo Dicaprio getting sweaty. Now that got your attention. Although, it’s not the kind of sweaty that you’d like, puking over the side of a boat and having massive headaches without the night before drinks bender sweatiness. Along with this special appearance of sweat, Leonardo Dicaprio (portraying Teddy) is the master of the fighting eyebrows, those caterpillars of hair only separated by a brow that is forever creased. Maybe he was having problems remembering his lines or his original 1950’s pants were riding up his crotch too much. In Contrast, Mark Ruffalo (playing Chuck, Teddy’s new cop partner) looks at ease in the 1950’s setting, oozing charm and moving with the grace of a dancing butterfly.

The film of Shutter Island has a powerful cast and an all-powerful director. Martin Scorsese at the helm commands a lot of respect, just from his previous manifesto of directed film work. I sneaked a look at what other reviewers had said about Marty boy’s directing. It wasn’t good, which is weird, as I like the way this film is directed. It has a noire feel and the pacing that is needed for a psychological thriller. The only scene that I thought wasn’t portrayed very well was the change in the relationship between Leonardo Dicaprio and Mark Ruffalo, when Leonardo (Teddy) pushes Mark (Chuck) away rather limp handily. The switch in friendship is too quick and brushed over, which I guess can’t be helped as a film has a limited amount of time to get its message across.

Which is better then? A heavy weigh director backed up by champion actors, or a book written by one man who likes his rivers to be mystic? It’s a hard choice, as both have their fantastic moments of truth and realism (slightly warped and wearing a skirt Dolores). The book does an amazing job of showing the inside of Teddy Daniels head, something that the film comes nowhere near. Teddy’s exploding headaches are given a whole extra dimension under the craftsmanship of the book writer, Dennis Lehane. The book is well written and splits the story of Teddy Daniel’s crazy obsession with anagrams up perfectly. I didn’t have any problem following the threads that Dennis Lahane laid down, something that apparently many people had a problem with in Martin Scorese’s film version (the twisty turns); maybe the general public are just a little bit thick.

Not enough explosions and muscle pumping to entertain the average audience or maybe too many crazy dream scenes with encrypted flash backs. Why are you all wet, baby? Another lovely example of encryption used in both book and film. The average audience was probably saying ‘I’d like a refund on this film, as it distracted me from eating my popcorn and scratching my butt crack’. I personally loved the visualisation of the fake pistol scene in the lighthouse. Ben Kingsley having tomato ketchup squirted over himself and then instantly removed without the aid of washing detergent. I’d say in my professional opinion that the book and film are on equal par. Excuse me, while I get back to my anagram making and 1950’s hat wearing.