SHUTTER ISLAND

The discordant assembly of images in Shutter Island are haunting and distressing. At first sight you believe that the film will take place entirely on an island that lodges the criminally insane, circa 1954. What gradually creeps in are flashbacks of American G.I.’s liberating Jews from a Nazi concentration camp, as well as our hero’s nightmares of his former wife cremating to ashes before his eyes. While in the present, the weather is constantly harsh and unforgiving, lending to cracking and shattering of walls and windows.


Before the first images of the film even roll, movie lovers will be instantly turned on by the use of the same György Ligeti music that was used in “The Shining.” Director Martin Scorsese, with his first dramatic feature since his Oscar-winning “The Departed” (2006), prioritizes foremost in creating an ominous and foreboding atmosphere. He lets us know immediately, through visual and aural suggestion, that the island will be a trap where violence and hysteria will be difficult if not impossible for his protagonist to escape from.

This is the Scorsese that I’ve been wanting to see since “Cape Fear” (1991), the Scorsese that will put a hypnotic spin on a big, fat American genre piece – film noir and psychodramatic horror – something that he could inject with his trademark skill and blustery. Scorsese continues to raise his game in technical perfection with his inimitable use of vivid angles and severe lighting. His visuals are gestating with silhouette and shadow patterns that alter his audience’s perceptions – we are at the mercy of what we think is real and what is imagined, and also perplexed by what point of view the film is adopting. Forget James Cameron. Scorsese is arguably the Film Master of the World.

In preparation for this film, Scorsese said that he was inspired by the silent classic “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1919) and the asylum melodrama “Shock Corridor” (1963). The former is a visually startling piece of German expressionism although dramatically limp by today’s standards, and Scorsese pretty much defuncts the value of the latter. What’s important here is that Scorsese draws from film history – the German expressionism of the 1920’s and the film noirs of the 1940’s primarily – and uses those techniques to make… a very frightening, bone-chilling thriller.

I will drop my explanation of Scorsese for a moment to talk about the actors. Leonardo DiCaprio (last seen in “Revolutionary Road”) stars as the Federal Marshal Teddy Daniels who arrives at the island to investigate the disappearances of a schizophrenic murderess (Emily Mortimer, “Match Point,” provides the mug shots of the crazed woman). Teddy is accompanied by fellow marshal Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo, “Zodiac”) whose initial motivation appears to solely adhere to professional duty until perhaps, or perhaps not, be prompted to participate in conspiracies.

Teddy definitely has a number of agendas, including possible revenge on another inmate who may have been responsible for setting the fire that his wife died in years ago. Michelle Williams (“Wendy and Lucy”) plays Teddy’s dead wife, and her ghostly or dreamlike appearances loom steadily in his memory. Ben Kingsley (“House of Sand and Fog”) plays the seemingly benign chief doctor, Max von Sydow (“Minority Report”) plays an insidious-looking doctor who looks like a WWII descendent, and Ted Levine (Buffalo Bill of “The Silence of the Lambs”) plays the cruel warden whose verbal expressions seem to endlessly slant on sadism. Patricia Clarkson (“Vicky Christina Barcelona”) and Jackie Earle Haley (“Little Children”) are also featured in key roles in which the less said about them the better.

“Shutter Island” puts you in the thrall of gripping suspense, especially when you learn that missing patients might be guinea pigs in extreme experiments involving psychosurgery. Teddy, a probing detective who learns things that could be damaging to his livelihood, is reduced into a Kafka-esque rat in a maze. He gets various portentous messages “to run.”

Yet the film prospers less on traditional plot than it does on Scorsese creating a state of mind. Scorsese, the world master as he is, has self-criticized himself in interviews over the years that he is fundamentally a “narrative filmmaker.” This time he has created a mood piece, much like Stanley Kubrick did with “The Shining” or “Eyes Wide Shut” crossed with the claustrophobic dread of F.W. Murnau, the 1920’s pioneer of German expressionistic shadows and fog weirdness. Sample inspiration: While Kubrick created a scene of blood flooding from an elevator, Scorsese creates a nerve-rattling scene of rats scurrying from an island cove.

It hardly matters if you know these classic films or not. It matters that Scorsese knows what he is doing. He draws on German expressionism techniques to make it look better than it has ever looked before (at least with updating that style for a modern film). Just like Quentin Tarantino draws from classic films and manages to outdo the original source, Scorsese is doing the same but always with the sake of servicing the story.

Reality becomes fractured in this film, and we are left to question the sanity of the entire hospital staff and left to question the degrees of paranoia of our protagonist. As well as to if and why the hallucinations are being amplified (are they being triggered by unbeknownst inoculation of psychotropic drugs?). By the end, we are left questioning the schematics of the plot perhaps in justifiable terms, but if you are truly captivated then you will up to its last minutes questioning the malicious motivations of mid-20th century psychology and science. As well as guessing up to its last minute of whose projection of truth is reliable and which slate of characters are the true crazies.

The only thing I can’t be kind about is the penultimate final shot of the movie. It’s a panning shot that underlines a symbolic object that no longer holds any weight after its true significance has already been revealed. Scorsese is also best when he is at his most merciless, and I feel he gets a tad too sympathetic with the wrong character. The climactic construction puts you through a bait-and-switch that makes you identify with its central characters in a new way, so this new sympathetic clutch is treacle.

But quibbles. “Shutter Island” is mesmerizing for the most part, and if you come out of it disappointed, I’ll gladly point you in the direction of Big Momma’s House 3 when it comes around, or something else that proudly aspires to be meaningless fodder and nothing more. But for true believers, count on “Shutter Island” on being the most adventurous and head-spinning movie treat that you will see for the next several months ahead of you, and then some.

Go to official site at http://www.shutterisland.com/#/home

Grade: A

THE EDGE OF DARKNESS

Dishonest advertising makes you believe that Edge of Darkness is just another vengeance with a bang thriller. Instead this paranoia thriller is far from the conventional assembly line, far from the routine and far from the mediocre. Protracted detours and an unnecessary extended length of two full hours keep this from being a complete success. But its aim to explore big issues of corporate illegal action and its interlocked political support, while achieving this with fairly original perspectives, grips your mental interest.

Up to this point, commercials have emphasized Mel Gibson pursuing his daughter’s killer with a “Death Wish” rage in his eye. Warner Bros. advertisements have not given you the proper impression that this is a complicated, and complex, conspiracy investigation where corrupt government and corporate malfeasance is involved. In other words, it aspires to be more. It aspires to be a 70's film.

You’ve seen enough movies where you can sniff out hackneyed corrupt government plots, but somehow this movie is layered and multifaceted. While the movie paints a primary villain into focus it generally contains a varietal range of villains, some more intrinsic to the girl’s death than others. Emma (Bojana Novakovic) is the girl, peculiarly sick but not necessarily contagious, who arrives home to visit her father Thomas Craven (Gibson, in his first lead role since “Signs”), a veteran Boston police detective. Not before long she is gunned down execution style.

Evidently poisoned and simultaneously targeted by contract killers, Emma seems to have been hiding disreputable secrets in regards to the fictional corporation she worked for called Northmoor. While only an intern at the research compound, it nevertheless is a high security clearance job that required absolute compliance. We gather that she was killed because she leaked information to activists. The media, and detective law enforcement, are already persuaded that Thomas was the supposed target in the shooting and that Emma’s death was a mistake.

Drama surrounding Northmoor is intriguing as we become vaguely oriented as to what is produced – it is one of those fictional sinister corporations that masquerades nuclear and weapons development with green peace. But in a later series of clandestine meetings held between a Northmoor executive and government operatives, the film finds its niche in plausibility. The script is by William Monahan (“The Departed”) and Andrew Bovell (“Lantana”), who collaboratively create intelligent layers of high crimes.

Yet at its most primal level, the movie just wants to see Craven break the rules so he can bust some heads. You might join in on some cruel applause when Craven pours poisoned milk down the throat of a bad guy. As this grey-haired lethal weapon, Gibson is really good in the movie constantly brewing with elevating intensity, and he’s got the Boston accent down pat.

But it is one of those movies that is way too reverent with its Boston accents, and some of the supporting players get you lost. Caterina Scorsone, as one of Emma’s former associates, lays on the accent in such a heavy-handed way that you can’t wait till she stops acting. Ray Winstone, that British actor, isn’t doing the Boston accent but his dialogue readings come off in a mumble – although he does have an interesting character to play as a guy who has in his longtime experience conducted both good and evil in his professional endeavors.

Other weaknesses slow down the momentum of the movie, none more evidently as the repetitive scenes of Gibson imagining Emma as a young girl again filling his presence. And it cannot but helped be mentioned that the script, in attempt to pipe up “mystery,” comprises characters who withhold telephone contacts (i.e., information) from Craven in a way that makes the audience feel as if the movie simply must be longer than it has to be. Emma’s surviving boyfriend (Shawn Roberts), who never leaves his flat despite being in danger, is signature as the stubborn paranoid and as a cloying irritant to the audience.

You might feel let down by such bumpy supporting characters carrying on with needlessly protracted anxiety fits. It’s the smart dialogue, the high corruption stuff, that keeps you riveted when “Edge of Darkness” is able to stick to its essentials.

It helps that Danny Huston (“The Constant Gardener,” “Children of Men”), with his seething intellectual-snob persona, portrays a figure of white collar evil. Martin Campbell, the director of “Casino Royale,” furnishes the Huston character with a magnificent office, with its glossy interiors and looming glass window view. Somehow Huston and that office stand out. Let’s recap: Superb work by Gibson and Huston, a screenplay with ideas, and hmm, that office.

Visit the official Edge of Darkness site at

http://edge-of-darkness.warnerbros.com/

Grade: B-

SHERLOCK HOLMES

Sherlock Holmes plunges you into the plot without warming you up or seducing you into 1890’s London, slapping together shots incoherently until you don’t care what is happening. Instead of sleuthing and puzzle-solving, the audience is treated to a reckless action scene. The dialogue is also zippy and breathless (and incoherent), and Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role as Sherlock even mumbles his words in an early scene where he insults Jude Law’s female companion (Law plays Dr. John Watson). While actors certainly appear debonair they are nevertheless surrounded by a sloppy production.

Worth mentioning right away is that there are precisely four good scenes in the movie, and surprisingly, three of those are action scenes. Dame Irene (Rachel McAdams) is swinging from a meat hook on one scene in a charnel house and Sherlock Action Hero has to set her free in time before she gets shredded by blades. That was a highlight, and that is not to sound sarcastic. It really is a good scene.

Also good moments are a scene featuring a runaway boat sinking into the bay, and a climactic scene jousting on the rafters. If you haven’t figured it out by now, let’s make it clear that Sherlock Holmes has been made into an Action Hero for this generation leaving the cleverness of sleuthing to past adaptations. Certainly there is a little bit of sleuthing, and the finale where he puts the pieces together is exuberantly executed. But did we really need to see Holmes in a boxing match? The snap and crackle direction by Guy Ritchie (“Snatch”) predisposes that it must be so.

That’s really for the Ritchie fans that enjoy his overblown theatrics, but for keen viewers, the Ritchie overall style is frenetic and chaotic (the mere snap and crackle editing is saved for shots of bone-breaking). Ritchie doesn’t care if you brew over the mystery of the film, he just wants to smash excess at your senses. As for the mystery, Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) has been executed by hanging but continues to terrorize London from beyond the grave. Death, you see, has only made him stronger. But Sherlock figures that Blackwood must have been getting help from somewhere other than from his gift of Black Magic.

But sometimes a superfast pace just makes time stand still. What’s lost is fresh Holmes and Watkins camaraderie. McAdams is adrift in randomly shuffled scenes. The Hans Zimmer score is endless lightning, it also never stops to breath. Although Zimmer does echo notes from Ennio Morricone’s score from “Once Upon a Time in the West.” Moreover, what is lost is any satisfying sense of cleverness.

In a production overrun with bombast, what you will nonetheless recognize is the set design of the film which is meticulous in detail. The film’s display of 1890’s London looks as real as the history books. It’s the actors who are contemporary, and the action and style that is ultra-modern. For those readers looking for nothing but sheer entertainment, why are you bothering to look anywhere else but “Avatar” for this holiday season?

Click Here to go to official Sherlock Holmes website

Grade: C