welcome to shutter island, we hope you enjoy your stay

the sure sign of a great movie is that when the credits are rolling – you wish you could watch it again… immediately!

this is no truer than with scorsese's incredible thriller, shutter island, which i watched for the second time last week.

in case you haven’t caught it, teddy (dicaprio’s troubled character) is a federal marshal sent to the island asylum to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a patient. accompanying him is his newly assigned partner chuck (raincoat ruffalo). you know immediately that this investigation is going to be anything but straight forward, especially when we meet up with dr. cawley (creepy kingsley), who proves to be of little help to our investigators.

scorsese has created an incredible visual treat. here we have a film noir that harks back to the old movies of hitchcock, and it effectively grabs you by the shoulders and drags you in. the dark lighting, long shadows, awesome music, the storm that isolates the island from the mainland, the lighthouse [who doesn’t love a creepy lighthouse?!?] and let’s not forget the memorable characters who occupy this mad island.

all that aside, it’s the raw emotion that you get from the movie of both the characters and their surroundings, that make this movie so incredible intense. all the characters serve a purpose, they are not just empty plot devices, and they are fully realised, and help make the movie deeply moving and occasionally very hard to watch.

this is not just a movie with adult content, this is one of those rare hollywood movies that’s not aimed at teenagers suffering from adhd. it’s an intelligent, emotional movie aimed at those of us who don’t just want to watch a movie – we want to experience it.

great filmmakers like scorsese, malick, haneke, salles, chan-wook park and aronofsky should all be encouraged [if not forced] to make films outside of their usual area of excellence and show the likes of bay, sommers, ratner and even spielberg a thing or six.

anyway – i digress – shutter island is a great example of a modern thriller, with an ending that has kept myself and my friends talking since i first saw it last year.