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"Shutter Island" starts working on us with the first musical notes under the Paramount logo's mountain, even before the film starts. They're ominous and doomy. So is the film. This is Martin Scorsese's evocation of the delicious shuddering fear we feel when horror movies are about something and don't release all the tension with action scenes.

In its own way it's a haunted house movie, or make that a haunted castle or fortress. Shutter Island, we're told, is a remote and craggy island off Boston, where a Civil War-era fort has been adapted as a prison for the criminally insane. We approach it by boat through lowering skies, and the feeling is something like the approach to King Kong's island: Looming in gloom from the sea, it fills the visitor with dread. To this island travel U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) and his partner Chuck Aule ( Mark Ruffalo ).

It's 1954, and they are assigned to investigate the disappearance of a child murderer ( Emily Mortimer ). There seems to be no way to leave the island alive. The disappearance of one prisoner might not require the presence of two marshals unfamiliar with the situation, but we never ask that question. Not after the ominous walls of the prison arise. Not after the visitors are shown into the office of the prison medical director, Dr. Cawley, played by Ben Kingsley with that forbidding charm he has mastered.

It's clear that Teddy has no idea what he's getting himself into. Teddy -- such an innocuous name in such a gothic setting. Scorsese, working from a novel by Dennis Lehane , seems to be telling a simple enough story here; the woman is missing, and Teddy and Chuck will look for her. But the cold, gray walls clamp in on them, and the offices of Cawley and his colleagues, furnished for the Civil War commanding officers, seem borrowed from a tale by Edgar Allan Poe.

Scorsese the craftsman chips away at reality piece by piece. Flashbacks suggest Teddy's traumas in the decade since World War II. That war, its prologue and aftermath, supplied the dark undercurrent of classic film noir. The term "post-traumatic shock syndrome" was not then in use, but its symptoms could be seen in men attempting to look confident in their facades of unstyled suits, subdued ties, heavy smoking and fedoras pulled low against the rain. DiCaprio and Ruffalo both affect this look, but DiCaprio makes it seem more like a hopeful disguise.

The film's primary effect is on the senses. Everything is brought together into a disturbing foreshadow of dreadful secrets. How did this woman escape from a locked cell in a locked ward in the old fort, its walls thick enough to withstand cannon fire? Why do Cawley and his sinister colleague Dr. Naehring (Max Von Sydow, ready to play chess with Death) seem to be concealing something? Why is even such a pleasant person as the deputy warden not quite convincingly friendly? (He's played by John Carroll Lynch , Marge's husband in " Fargo ," so you can sense how nice he should be.) Why do the methods in the prison trigger flashbacks to Teddy's memories of helping to liberate a Nazi death camp?

These kinds of questions are at the heart of film noir. The hero is always flawed. Scorsese showed his actors the great 1947 noir " Out of the Past ," whose very title is a noir theme: Characters never arrive at a story without baggage. They have unsettled issues, buried traumas. So, yes, perhaps Teddy isn't simply a clean-cut G-man. But why are the others so strange? Kingsley in particular exudes menace every time he smiles.

There are thrilling visuals in "Shutter Island." Another film Scorsese showed his cast was Hitchcock's " Vertigo ," and we sense echoes of its hero's fear of heights. There's the possibility that the escaped woman might be lurking in a cave on a cliff, or hiding in a lighthouse. Both involve hazardous terrain to negotiate, above vertiginous falls to waves pounding on the rocks below. A possible hurricane is approaching. Light leaks out of the sky. The wind sounds mournful. It is, as they say, a dark and stormy night. And that's what the movie is about: atmosphere, ominous portents, the erosion of Teddy's confidence and even his identity. It's all done with flawless directorial command. Scorsese has fear to evoke, and he does it with many notes.

You may read reviews of "Shutter Island" complaining that the ending blindsides you. The uncertainty it causes prevents the film from feeling perfect on first viewing. I have a feeling it might improve on second. Some may believe it doesn't make sense. Or that, if it does, then the movie leading up to it doesn't. I asked myself: OK, then, how should it end? What would be more satisfactory? Why can't I be one of those critics who informs the director what he should have done instead?

Oh, I've had moments like that. Every moviegoer does. But not with "Shutter Island." This movie is all of a piece, even the parts that don't appear to fit. There is a human tendency to note carefully what goes before, and draw logical conclusions. But -- what if you can't nail down exactly what went before? What if there were things about Cawley and his peculiar staff that were hidden? What if the movie lacks a reliable narrator? What if its point of view isn't omniscient but fragmented? Where can it all lead? What does it mean? We ask, and Teddy asks, too.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Shutter Island (2010)

Rated R for disturbing violent content, language and some nudity

138 minutes

Leonardo DiCaprio as Teddy Daniels

Mark Ruffalo as Chuck Aule

Ben Kingsley as Dr. Cawley

Max von Sydow as Dr. Naehring

Michelle Williams as Dolores

Jackie Earle Haley as George

Ted Levine as Warden

Based on the novel by

• Dennis Lehane
• Laeta Kalogridis

Directed by

• Martin Scorsese

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Movie Review | 'Shutter Island'

All at Sea, Surrounded by Red Herrings

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By A.O. Scott

• Feb. 18, 2010

“Shutter Island” takes place off the coast of Massachusetts in 1954. I’m sorry, that should be OFF THE COAST OF MASSACHUSETTS! IN 1954! since every detail and incident in the movie, however minor, is subjected to frantic, almost demented (and not always unenjoyable) amplification. The wail of strangled cellos accompanies shots of the titular island, a sinister, rain-lashed outcropping that is home to a mental hospital for the CRIMINALLY INSANE! The color scheme is lurid, and the camera movements telegraph anxiety. Nothing is as it seems. Something TERRIBLE is afoot.

Sadly, that something turns out to be the movie itself, directed by Martin Scorsese and adapted by Laeta Kalogridis from a peculiar contraption of a thriller by Dennis Lehane. Like Shutter Island in the opening scenes, the full dimensions of the catastrophe come into view only gradually. At first everything is fine, or at least not quite right in a way that seems agreeably intriguing. Mr. Scorsese uses his considerable formal dexterity — his intimate, comprehensive understanding of how sound and image work together to create meanings and moods — to conjure a tingly atmosphere of uncertainty and dread.

The vessel of these anxieties is Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Teddy Daniels, a United States marshal taking a ferry ride out to the island to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Mr. DiCaprio, having grown perhaps overly fond of his accent from “The Departed,” brings it along for the ride, and it spreads through the movie like a contagious disease. Teddy’s partner (pahtnah), Chuck Aule, played by Mark (Mahk) Ruffalo, is supposed to be from the Pacific Northwest but he seems to have left all his R’s back in Seattle. Michelle Williams pops up in smudgy, color-drenched memories and hallucinations as Teddy’s dead wife, Dolores, her intonations as thick and clammy as chowder.

Those dialect-coached Boston inflections predominate in “Shutter Island,” but are not the only voices heard on the grounds of the asylum, where the patients perambulate like zombies and the orderlies lurk like vengeful specters. Ben Kingsley is Dr. Cawley, the psychiatrist in charge, with silky upper-crust menace in his voice and a diabolical little beard on his chin. Max von Sydow spouts Freudianisms in insinuating Germanic tones that remind Teddy — and of course not only Teddy — of Nazis, an association that helps to induce gratuitous flashbacks of corpses stacked outside death-camp barracks.

Those images emanate from Teddy’s troubled mind, the status of which is one of the movie’s chief mysteries. There are many others besides. Intimations of conspiracy, supernaturalism, cold war shenanigans and a whole lot more float around in the atmosphere, which is convulsed by operatically bad weather and the energetic furrowing of Mr. DiCaprio’s brow. As he interviews patients and staff members, trying to figure out how a woman named Rachel Solando could have vanished, barefoot, from her cell, Teddy is plagued by headaches, bad dreams and paranoia. Everyone he talks to seems to be harboring a secret, but what can it be?

Is there some kind of espionage-related psychological experimentation going on? Is it connected in some way to grisly medical research undertaken during the Third Reich? Are Dr. Cawley’s methods, which he claims are a humane advance over the cruelty and superstition of the past, really a form of madness in their own right? And what about the strange coincidence that Shutter Island apparently houses the firebug who caused Dolores’s death?

All of these riddles send out tendrils of implication that end up strangling the movie, the plot of which does not so much thicken as clog and coagulate. Mr. Scorsese, ever resourceful, draws on the influence of Alfred Hitchcock, the master of carefully orchestrated psychological confusion, and also nods in the direction of Mario Bava, the Italian horror maestro whose gothic fantasias routinely assert the triumph of sensation over sense. Mr. Scorsese’s camera sense effectively fills every scene with creepiness, but sustained, gripping suspense seems beyond his grasp.

And the movie’s central dramatic problem — the unstable boundary between the reality of Shutter Island and Teddy’s perception of it — becomes less interesting as the story lurches along. You begin to suspect almost immediately that a lot of narrative misdirection is at work here, as MacGuffins and red herrings spawn and swarm. But just when the puzzle should accelerate, the picture slows down, pushing poor Teddy into a series of encounters with excellent actors (Emily Mortimer, Jackie Earle Haley, Patricia Clarkson) who provide painstaking exposition of matters that the audience already suspects are completely irrelevant.

Mr. Scorsese in effect forces you to study the threads on the rug he is preparing, with lugubrious deliberateness, to pull out from under you. As the final revelations approach, the stakes diminish precipitously, and the sense that the whole movie has been a strained and pointless contrivance starts to take hold.

There are, of course, those who will resist this conclusion, in part out of loyalty to Mr. Scorsese, a director to whom otherwise hard-headed critics are inclined to extend the benefit of the doubt. But in this case the equivocation, the uncertainty, seems to come from the filmmaker himself, who seems to have been unable to locate what it is in this movie he cares about, beyond any particular, local formal concern. He has, in the past, used characters whose grasp of reality was shaky — or who stubbornly lived in realities of their own making — as vehicles for psychological exploration and even social criticism. But both Teddy’s mind and the world of Shutter Island are closed, airless systems, illuminated with flashes of virtuosity but with no particular heat, conviction or purpose.

“Shutter Island” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Blood, swearing, cigarettes.

SHUTTER ISLAND

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Martin Scorsese; written by Laeta Kalogridis, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane; director of photography, Robert Richardson; edited by Thelma Schoonmaker; production designer, Dante Ferretti; produced by Mr. Scorsese, Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer and Bradley J. Fischer; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 18 minutes.

WITH: Leonardo DiCaprio (Teddy Daniels), Mark Ruffalo (Chuck Aule), Ben Kingsley (Dr. Cawley), Michelle Williams (Dolores), Emily Mortimer (Rachel Solando), Patricia Clarkson (Rachel Solando), Jackie Earle Haley (George Noyce) and Max von Sydow (Dr. Naehring).

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Shutter island — film review.

Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" is a remarkable high-wire act, performed without a net and exploiting all the accumulated skills of a consummate artist. It dazzles and provokes. But since when did Scorsese become a circus performer?

By Kirk Honeycutt , The Associated Press October 14, 2010 8:42pm

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BERLIN — Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” is a remarkable high-wire act, performed without a net and exploiting all the accumulated skills of a consummate artist. It dazzles and provokes. But since when did Scorsese become a circus performer?

The movie certainly keeps you in its grip from the opening scene: It’s a nerve-twisting, tension-jammed exercise in pure paranoia and possibly Scorsese’s most commercial film yet. With a top cast hitting their marks with smooth efficiency, “Island” looks like a boxoffice winner. Paramount opens the film domestically Friday Feb. 19.

Laeta Kalogridis’ screenplay is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, whose blue-collar crime novels have been turned into such movies as “Gone Baby Gone” and “Mystic River.” But this story clearly derives from memories and images of old movies — from 1950s Gothic mysteries and Cold War-era paranoia thrillers to 1960s movies cranked out by the Roger Corman factory (where Scorsese once toiled), especially its Edgar Allan Poe/Vincent Price chillers.

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You get an isolated island, howling weather, mad scientists, an ex-Nazi, tough cops, deranged patients and a penal hospital with crowded, filthy cells and corridors stretching forever — possibly beyond sanity.

Scorsese has given himself a film student’s puzzle: Try to make a ’50s-era thrill ride with today’s techniques and technology. One senses his childlike delight behind every camera move and jump cut. As his audience squirms, he’s in movie heaven.

From the opening music chords, supervised by Robbie Robertson from existing source material, a sense of doom settles over the film’s characters. In 1954, two U.S. marshals — Teddy (Scorsese’s go-to star, Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) — watch the forbidding fortress that is Shutter Island loom larger and larger as their ferry approaches the island’s only dock.

In quick order, exposition rolls off the actors’ tongues, like in those B-movies that lasted only 70 minutes. Shutter Island is a hospital for the criminally insane. One female psychopathic patient has gone missing, incredibly, from a locked room within the fearsome-looking Ashecliffe Hospital. A hurricane is approaching. The guards and psychiatrists then greet the lawmen with hostility and evasions. Everything screams, “Go back!”

Teddy gradually warms up to his partner enough to take him into his confidence: He asked for this assignment. Unresolved issues await him on Shutter Island. His nightmares vividly underscore these past traumas. They involve his platoon liberating a concentration camp and witnessing its horrors. They involve the death of his wife and a former Shutter Island prisoner who talked to him about devastating medical experiments and funding by anti-Soviet groups.

In fact, maybe these aren’t nightmares at all. During daytime, Teddy experiences flashbacks and the presence of the dead, especially his late wife (Michelle Williams) and a little girl from the camp who asks, “Why didn’t you save me?”

The hospital’s pipe-smoking chief psychiatrist, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), preaches the humane treatment of patients. (He won’t use the word “prisoner.”) But his fellow shrink with a German accent (Max von Sydow) reminds Teddy of the dark side of the medical profession he encountered in the camp.

When the storm hits, chaos reigns. Trees crash into buildings, electrical outages free prisoners, all communication with the mainland is cut off and the two marshals are as much prisoners as the patients.

The story barrels forward into encounters with an escaped prisoner (Patricia Clarkson) hiding on the island and another prisoner (Jackie Earle Haley) who has been severely beaten. Then, suddenly, the escaped female killer (Emily Mortimer) is found — just like that. Teddy isn’t buying it.

The problem, of course, is the viewer is in the same boat. Are Teddy’s nightmares and ghosts because of something the warden has slipped into his drink? Are any of these encounters real? If so, which are real and which are … imaginary?

The big reveal, when it does happen, might be yet another fraud. Teddy certainly clings to his conspiracy theories.

Scorsese is in full control of all three rings of this cinematic circus. Every lesson he learned, from Alfred Hitchcock to Don Siegel, is on display. Nearly every camera move is fraught with excitement. The music, costumes, props and the many rooms and halls of this fortress-prison are designed for maximum emotional impact.

After finally getting that long-sought Oscar for “The Departed,” perhaps Scorsese figures it’s time to have a bit of fun. He isn’t asking to be taken seriously here. This isn’t “Taxi Driver” or “GoodFellas” or even “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.” It comes closest in his oeuvre to “Cape Fear,” but with a more commercial instinct.

Let’s hope this is a digression in his illustrious career, a way of playing with what Orson Welles called the “toys” of moviemaking. With Dante Ferretti designing his sets and Robert Richardson behind the camera, Scorsese certainly has the right playmates. Longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker weaves her magic by bringing images together in such a way that the audience can’t quite trust what it sees.

It’s a pleasure to experience Scorsese as a circus master. One just hopes he doesn’t continue in this vein.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival Opens: Friday, Feb. 19 (Paramount) Production: Paramount Pictures presents a Phoenix Pictures production in association with Sikelia Prods. and Appian Way Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Max von Sydow, Jackie Earle Haley Director: Martin Scorsese Screenwriter: Laeta Kalogridis Based on a novel by: Dennis Lehane Producers: Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Bradley J. Fischer, Martin Scorsese Executive producers: Chris Brigham, Laeta Kalogridis, Dennis Lehane, Gianni Nunnari, Louis Phillips Director of photography: Robert Richardson Production designer: Dante Ferretti Music: Robbie Robertson Costume designer: Sandy Powell Editor: Thelma Schoonmaker Rated R, 139 minutes

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Review: 'shutter island' is creepy, terrific.

(CNN) -- Could insanity be contagious? Marooned on an island with only the criminally insane for company, how long before you doubted yourself?

Certainly something is not right on Shutter Island. Some miles off the Massachusetts coast, this is a barren slab of gray rock, home to a hospital that is also a prison. U.S. Marshals Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) arrive to look into the disappearance of a patient.

According to head psychiatrist Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), Rachel Solando simply disappeared from her locked cell without a trace -- she didn't even take her shoes.

Someone is lying, and Teddy intends to find out who, and why. But he has a few hidden motives of his own.

A labyrinthine mystery set in 1954, Dennis Lehane's novel "Shutter Island" is a brazen page-turner only a whisper away from absurdity -- and the same is true of Martin Scorsese 's faithful and compellingly creepy movie.

Scorsese is sticking with the serious pulp mode that brought him sizeable success with "The Departed," but the crisply ironic symmetries of the cop thriller have been jettisoned for an altogether murkier psychological investigation.

And the more incredible "Shutter Island" gets, the more energized Scorsese seems. It's a paranoia movie, rife with guilty secrets, nightmare visions and gothic horrors -- his masterly variation on Sam Fuller's legendary Cold War freak-out, "Shock Corridor."

Ashcliffe is one of those asylums with serious plumbing issues. A storm is coming in. Water drips from every faltering light fixture, and the clinical staff are more sinister than the patients. (Another doctor is played by Max von Sydow, and in an inspired bit of casting, the head warden is Ted Levine, Buffalo Bill in "The Silence of the Lambs.")

The mood is jittery, ominous, disorienting. The marshals' investigation feels out of sync, as if they're walking into a setup, but they keep digging deeper. What else are they going to do? There's no way back until the storm blows over.

Pinched, pale and increasingly perturbed, DiCaprio is plagued with migraines and bad dreams. He could be one of inmates if he's not careful. A World War II vet, he's haunted by memories -- his company liberated Dachau -- and in nocturnal communication with the charred remains of his late wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams).

These nightmares are among the most audaciously expressionist scenes Scorsese has given us, simultaneously chilling and nearly beautiful in their exquisite horror. Embers fall like snowflakes over a marital embrace; a dead child stares accusingly from a heap of murdered concentration camp victims ... and blinks.

iReport: B+ for "Shutter Island"

Starting with a locked room mystery -- the oldest head-scratcher in the book -- Scorsese expands the search until we have covered every nook and cranny of that island. This may be pulp, a charade even, but it's pulp that evokes the great horrors of the modern age -- the bomb, the Holocaust, eugenics -- all those atrocities we file away somewhere deep in the back of our minds so that we can still look each other in the eye.

Like Jake LaMotta in "Raging Bull" and Howard Hughes in "The Aviator," Teddy wants to break out of his own head, because the ultimate locked room is our own hard wiring -- that's the horror and the pity of it.

With striking performances across the board and exemplary contributions from cinematographer Robert Richardson, editor Thelma Schoonmaker and music arranger Robbie Robertson (drawing on Mahler, Penderecki, Cage, Adams and Ligeti), "Shutter Island" comes too late for 2009 Oscar consideration. But it's easily the best movie of the year so far.

"Shutter Island" runs 138 minutes and is rated R. For Entertainment Weekly's review, click here .

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Shutter Island Review

Did leo and scorsese's latest drive us crazy.

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Shutter island.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 35 Reviews
• Kids Say 106 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Twisty, disturbing Scorsese thriller too intense for most.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Shutter Island is a very intense thriller, with some highly disturbing imagery, including drowned children, Nazi concentration camps, piles of corpses, blood, guns, dark prison corridors, and bizarre, scary nightmares and hallucinations. It contains strong, but not pervasive, foul…

Why Age 18+?

The words "f--k" is heard about a dozen times; "s--t" a few times. We also hear

Quite a few disturbing flashbacks and nightmare sequences, with piles of dead bo

Characters smoke cigarettes often, and one character smokes a pipe. The main cha

No sex, but in a flashback sequence we see a little kissing between an affection

Any Positive Content?

The movie deals with the limits of the human mind and the sheer amount of horror

The hero is not much of a role model. He has twin goals: One of them requires br

The words "f--k" is heard about a dozen times; "s--t" a few times. We also hear "dick," "prick," "cock," "screw that," "dammit," "Jesus Christ," and "Goddamn it."

Violence & Scariness

Q uite a few disturbing flashbacks and nightmare sequences, with piles of dead bodies in the Dachau concentration camp, a failed suicide attempt (the victim lays twitching in a puddle of blood), drowned children, a woman's body burning, shooting victims, and more blood. One scene shows the mass slaughter of Nazi guards by American soldiers; their bodies are riddled with bullets as they collapse, one by one, in a line. There are also scary images, such as prisoners grabbing through prison bars at the hero.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters smoke cigarettes often, and one character smokes a pipe. The main character once had a drinking problem, but now abstains from liquor. We see him drinking whisky in flashbacks. Other characters drink in a social way. The hospital uses various sedatives and other kinds of drugs on the patients. The hero takes aspirins and there is a suggestion that they might be laced with hallucinogens or other drugs. We see the effects of these drugs through the eyes of the hero.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

No sex, but in a flashback sequence we see a little kissing between an affectionate married couple. Brief flash of unclothed male prisonors.

Positive Messages

The movie deals with the limits of the human mind and the sheer amount of horror and torment it can take before it snaps. It also examines the extent to which humans are capable of violence and evil. Some characters may or may not have good intentions, but the movie deliberately blurs this behavior in the service of the story. Some conversation about belief in God.

Positive Role Models

The hero is not much of a role model. He has twin goals: One of them requires bravery and selflessness and the other, selfish revenge. But whether he achieves either of these goals is up for debate. He also exhibits violent and erratic behavior throughout and does not play well with others. (On the other hand, he does risk his life in one sequence to save his partner.) Other characters do not seem trustworthy or reliable either.

Parents need to know that Shutter Island is a very intense thriller, with some highly disturbing imagery, including drowned children, Nazi concentration camps, piles of corpses, blood, guns, dark prison corridors, and bizarre, scary nightmares and hallucinations. It contains strong, but not pervasive, foul language, smoking, and suggestions of various medical/experimental drugs. The movie's surprises and twists, while somewhat transparent, might appeal to older teens, if they can stomach the strong stuff. Younger kids and teens are strongly warned away. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (35)
• Kids say (106)

Based on 35 parent reviews

Excellent movie! Very well-made!

Thrilling and brilliant, what's the story.

In 1954, federal marshal Teddy Daniels ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) and his new partner Chuck Aule ( Mark Ruffalo ) arrive on Shutter Island, a treatment facility outside of Boston for the criminally insane, to search for an escaped murderess. Haunted by past images from Nazi concentration camps and visions of his dead wife ( Michelle Williams ), Teddy has another, more personal reason to visit the island. Unfortunately, he soon discovers that there might be far more sinister things going on, and that doctors Cawley ( Ben Kingsley ) and Naehring ( Max von Sydow ), may be involved in some kind of hideous experiment. But even if Teddy can find proof, will he ever get off the island?

Is It Any Good?

SHUTTER ISLAND is a great-looking, highly stylized, very intense thriller in the vein of Martin Scorsese 's earlier Cape Fear (1991). The film was directed by the legendary Scorsese and adapted from a novel by Dennis Lehane ( Mystic River , Gone Baby Gone ). While Scorsese is very good at creating strong images and exploring powerful characters head-on, though, he's not particularly good at sneaking around, planting clues and red herrings, and springing surprise plot twists.

Experienced moviegoers will likely be two jumps ahead of the story, but that doesn't take away from the pure, exciting, physical experience of the movie itself. Individual moments and the performances of an excellent cast can take your breath away, regardless of the whole. As with many of Scorsese's movies, the imagery can be of a highly disturbing -- even nightmarish -- nature, and younger viewers are strongly warned away.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the movie's violent nightmares, visions, and flashbacks. How did they affect you? Did they make you feel angry, edgy, or curious? Why do you think that was? Did you notice your behavior change after the movie?

Talk about the methods of Dr. Cawley ( Ben Kingsley ), which include listening to and empathizing with his patients. How is this better than treating dangerous patients with drugs and locking them up? Is it easier, or more difficult, to listen?

According to the movie, the human brain has the capacity to block out memories of horrible or tragic events. What effect would this have? Would it make life easier, or more difficult?

The movie is set in 1954 and portrays a lot of era-accurate smoking ? What has changed about how people think about smoking since the 1950s?

Movie Details

• In theaters : February 19, 2010
• On DVD or streaming : June 8, 2010
• Cast : Ben Kingsley , Leonardo DiCaprio , Mark Ruffalo
• Director : Martin Scorsese
• Inclusion Information : Indian/South Asian actors
• Studio : Paramount Pictures
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 138 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : disturbing violent content, language and some nudity
• Last updated : July 30, 2024

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Shutter Island

Martin Scorsese knows something about surprise endings which twist meisters like M. Night Shyamalan seem to have forgotten. The twist doesn’t matter if you haven’t already told a good story. By the time Shutter Island gets to its twist, it has already told such a tale. You’re invested in these characters and no matter how it turns out you’re going to walk away happy. The twist, when it happens, only serves to make a deeper connection. It makes sense of the madness, brings order to the chaos, and then rips your heart out right through your chest. The movie exists not in service of the twist, rather the twist exists in service of the movie. And when I rewatch Shutter Island , as I plan to do almost immediately, it’ll be like watching an entirely new movie. The story I was watching was not the one I thought it was, but in the end either story is equally compelling.

For now I can only tell you about the story I thought I was watching and let you discover that other story for yourself in theaters. Leonardo DiCaprio plays US Marshal Teddy Daniels, sent to investigate an escape at a remote island mental facility. Ashecliffe is a maximum security insane asylum where the nation’s most violent, dangerous, and often hopeless cases are sent. He arrives on the ferry with his new partner Chuck ( Mark Ruffalo ) and, though still suffering the ill-effects of seasickness, immediately gets to work looking for the lost prisoner. Daniels may, however, be interested in more than just a lost prisoner and haunted by the memories of a past tragedy he stalks Ashecliffe’s grounds, fighting his way through an uncooperative staff, looking for answers.

But is the staff really uncooperative? Ben Kingsley is sympathetic and kind as Ashecliffe’s head Dr. Cawley. The man we see in front of us seems genuinely driven to help the people he’s been charged with. He smiles and comforts even as Teddy’s investigation starts to point to something darker and more mysterious. Kingsley is just one of Shutter Island’s captivating contradictions in a world where everything seems lost in shades of foggy gray.

Maybe it’s not a man who’s the real danger. At times it seems as though nature itself is against Teddy. The island is almost permanently shrouded in an ominous, concealing mist. The hospital itself is a contradiction: at times dark and creepy place full of leaks and the screams of the damned, at others a clean, professional facility full of people who want to help. Scorsese uses his mastery of visual style to full effect, playing with even the most mundane trappings of a scene in creating an atmosphere that hints at something else beneath the surface. Cigarette smoke wafts through the air, obscuring a face and then clearing away as the individual reveals something important. Rain pounds against the windows while lightning flashes electrify a room as if Teddy is being fried from the inside out . Shutter Island is full of masterful, subtle touches which all point to something else, but which you’ll easily dismiss until later when it all makes sense. Those easy to miss subtleties linger in your subconscious and hang around until you need them. Eventually it all fits together into one, unexpected, whole.

DiCaprio’s performance is a critical part of that whole and like so much in the movie, it doesn’t all pay off until the credits roll and Scorsese closes the book on his story. In doing so he leaves us with all the answers we need, but without answering all of our questions. You’ll know what those questions are, they aren’t the ones you expect, but you’ll be asking them long after you’ve walked out of the theater.

Shutter Island is a fiercely twisted, complex film built on a foundation of character-driven emotion. Those who think of Scorsese only as that guy who makes gangster movies will undoubtedly be disappointed, but if you’re interested in more than seeing how many guns can fit inside a violin case, then Shutter Island delivers. For me it’s my favorite Scorsese, the Scorsese of Bringing out the Dead , returned from a long hiatus. Shutter Island puts all of the director’s considerable talents to use in one film, harkening back to old school suspense thrillers like the work of Hitchcock while incorporating the new ideas of modern movie magic. Thought-provoking and surprising at every turn, Shutter Island isn’t to be missed.

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Movie Review: Shutter Island (2010)

• MovieGoddess
• Movie Reviews
• 6 responses
• --> February 21, 2010

The opening shot of a Boston ferry emerging from an impenetrable veil of fog as it makes it way toward a hostile, gothic-looking island proves to be an apt visual metaphor for what transpires in Shutter Island . From the moment the ferry appears and we hear the first strains of music, the audience is cued to stiffen in their seats. The tactic may seem a little heavy handed, but is very effective nonetheless. The audience knows at the get go, this trip to the island home of a Federal asylum/penitentiary for the criminally insane promises to be an unpleasant one. It is a search for the truth, and when it comes to light, it isn’t the one the protagonist had hoped to find.

The genius of Martin Scorsese’s film isn’t due to an original story or the much-discussed final twist. Neither the story nor the twist is original; we have seen films of this type before. No, its genius lies in the script’s subtext, the masterful execution by Scorsese, and the complex performances of Leonardo DiCaprio and Sir Ben Kinsley.

If ever a film required the talents of a deft director, Shutter Island is one. I don’t want to give anything away because the eventual revelation along with the heartbreaking conclusion is critical to the viewer’s enjoyment. Suffice it to say that in a story told by an unreliable narrator, what unfolds must be capable of two interpretations for the twist to work. Careful attention must be paid to the dialog, the nuances of the performances, composition of the shots, editing, and point-of-view. Thankfully, Scorsese is the right man for the job. In my humble opinion, there are a few moments in the film that don’t read as well as they could, but Scorsese’s hits far outweigh those few small misses.

It’s 1954, and U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) visit Ashecliffe Hospital on Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of violent patient Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer/Patricia Clarkson), a war widow who drowned her three children yet remains blissfully unaware of that fact. But something is wrong. How is it that in a maximum security institution, no one saw her leave? To complicate matters, a violent storm is approaching the island which threatens to unleash chaos in an already unstable, chaotic environment. How could the barefooted Rachel navigate the inhospitable and harsh terrain of the island and elude capture by the hospital guards? Throughout the investigation, hospital administrator Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley, looking a little like an older Aleister Crowley) proves uncooperative and his attitude heightens the suspicions of the already mistrustful Daniels.

Shutter Island is rich with vivid images and symbols associated with critical events in the back stories of both Daniels and Solando. As the investigation progresses and Daniels’ painful personal memories intrude, their personal histories intertwine in his dreams. Scorsese weaves these images into a nightmarish tapestry for the dream sequences which are rife with poignancy and horrific meaning.

Kudos to DiCaprio who found an inroad for portraying Daniels, a deeply troubled man who has suffered more than his fair share of violence and trauma — from his war time experiences to the death of his much beloved wife Dolores (played to perfection by Michelle Williams whose character appears to Daniels as a kind of spirit guide). As Dr. Cawley, Kingsley projects an air of secretiveness and deceit and later, as time goes on, one of sympathy. And Patricia Clarkson delivers a stunning performance in her brief scenes as the “real” Solando.

Shutter Island explores the tensions and anxieties that characterized 1950s America, an era when postwar malaise, the Cold War, HUAC, paranoia, and conspiracy theories held sway. Daniels is convinced that Ashecliffe is involved in a government-sponsored conspiracy, to what purpose he’s not sure. But the problem with conspiracy theories is that as they are laid out, the details become increasingly convoluted and hard to believe. Is Daniels off the mark? The suspense will keep viewers glued to their seats.

The inspired soundtrack comprised of modern classical pieces — selected by Robbie Robertson — work in concert with the script and Scorsese’ direction to create an absorbing mystery/drama that is as tense and disturbing as it is oddly tender. Shutter Island emerges as one of 2010’s must-see films.

I've been a fanatical movie buff since I was a little girl, thanks to my parents who encouraged my brother and I to watch anything and everything we wanted, even the stuff deemed inappropriate for minors. I work, write, and reside in San Francisco the city where I was born and bred.

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'Movie Review: Shutter Island (2010)' have 6 comments

March 8, 2010 @ 11:32 pm Rose Taylor

There is really a nice review about Shutter Island. Well I am just thinking about to watch this movie but before that I wanted to read its review. I think this seems the first great movie of 2010.

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May 29, 2010 @ 2:58 pm Anna Bregman

When I read the original book by Dennis Lehane, I thought the plot was kind of silly. Having said that, this film was an extremely good adaptation of a slightly silly book! The atmosphere created is great and it’s utterly convincing as a period drama in terms of the design, costumes and style of acting. I’d recommend it.

November 14, 2010 @ 9:16 am Jae Cho

Not a particularly great story, but still a good movie nonetheless. Great acting by DiCaprio.

December 2, 2010 @ 6:30 am shutters

This review is super, my partner wanted me to get this DVD but I wasn’t keen, I have really changed my mind now I have read this.

December 7, 2010 @ 9:43 am Hannamint

I really enjoyed shutter island, but you only feel like watching it one time once you see the ending. It’s an extremely good twist at the end. I honestly didn’t see it coming. Maybe I’m just naive, or maybe everyone else is a little more in depth than I am. I would recommend this movie, at least for one watch.

November 25, 2014 @ 5:49 pm Joseph

It was a great movie and kept me entertained until the every end. It is a must watch for every thriller fan.

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Thanks for checking out our Shutter Island review.

Genre: Suspense Drama Directed by: Martin Scorsese Staring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine Released: February 19, 2010

THE GENERAL IDEA

Drama is set in 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island. Once there its revealed that Teddy has his own agenda, tracking down a criminal he has a personal agenda against.

The cast is perfect. Of course I have yet to be disappointed by DiCaprio (The Beach doesn’t exist to me – shuddap) and the rest of the cast fits in perfectly as well. DiCaprio’s Boston dialect is dead on, and surprisingly Mark Ruffalo steps up from his normal light fare to deliver a wonderful supporting role as Teddy’s assistant. And Kingsley is just delicious as the resident psychiatrist.

This is a real thinking movie. It will have you on your toes the whole time trying to “figure it out” and you wont. Like a lot of Scorsese films, each detail is important and is a brick being laid down in constructing the film. When something seems random, 15 minutes later something happens that tells you it wasn’t. And by the time you get all the details straight you realize that there is a solid beautifully built wall in front of you.

Don’t go pee. Don’t order the big pop. Get comfy. With 2 hours of actual film, this requires you to watch every detail of the film. Everything is important. Nothing is fluff. It all matters.

The film keeps you in the dark, which just makes you feel the US Marshall’s frustration even more. And the last 5 minutes of the film makes it ALL worth it. The most brilliant part of the plot is in the conclusion when it all makes sense and the crime is solved.

The film is confusing – on purpose. You have to be patient as it is all explained, and is so worth it. I have heard a number of people say they were too confused about the film and it left them lost. Be patient and pay attention and it all works. Its an unorthodox delivery which some may find disorienting, but it all comes together.

Aside from keeping you in the dark, which is part of the point, I don’t have much bad to say about this movie.

A very deep and thought provoking film. The closing statement from Teddy will have you blown away and thinking long after the credits have rolled. I don’t know if there is a greater compliment to give a movie than to say it rolls on in the mind long after it ends.

I give Shutter Island an 8 out of 10

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Shutter Island (United States, 2010)

Spoiler Alert: Although every effort has been made to limit the revelations in this review, it's difficult to provide a coherent discussion of Shutter Island without giving away something, so readers are hereby placed on alert. If you're familiar with the book, however, there's no reason to stop here…

What's wrong with Shutter Island ? This has been the question ever since Paramount Pictures elected to move the Martin Scorsese-directed thriller from its comfortable pre-Oscar position to the wastelands of February. It turns out that there's nothing wrong with Shutter Island - except perhaps that it's not Oscar worthy material. An atmospheric mind-fuck of a thriller, this movie delights in playing games with the audience's perceptions and has been crafted with such competence that it rises above the somewhat generic storyline that forms the basis of Dennis Lehane's novel. The strength of the film, like the book, is that it never allows the viewer to feel comfortable with what he is watching. That's because Shutter Island is presented from the perspective of an unreliable narrator and, as such, the lines between fantasy and reality sometimes blur so strongly that it's easy to become unanchored in trying to distinguish between what's real and what isn't. A case can be made that the movie is so enamored with this aspect of its approach that it fails to connect on an emotional level. Shutter Island addresses some powerful, disturbing concepts but, despite effective performances by the leads, the movie's psychological impact is minimal. It doesn't pack the powerhouse punch one has come to expect from Scorsese. Still, the director's consummate skill has lifted what might otherwise be a middling endeavor into something compellingly watchable. It's another Cape Fear .

The time is 1954, with the Cold War and its associated paranoia on the rise and the black magic of Nazi Germany still not entirely dispelled. The place is Shutter Island, a forbidding outcropping off the New England coast. Shutter Island houses Ashecliffe Hospital, an asylum for the criminally insane. Even more escape-proof than Alcatraz, Shutter Island virtually guarantees that the only ways out are through an officially sanctioned release or as a victim of the sea and the rocks it pummels. Federal marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), arrive on blustery early autumn day to investigate the disappearance of a prisoner, Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), who has vanished without a trace. Her doctors, Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and Naehring (Max von Sydow), are less than open about what's going on behind-the-scenes on the island, and their unhelpfulness arouses Teddy's suspicions that all is not what it appears to be. Clues lead him to believe he's not merely investigating the disappearance of one woman but that he has stumbled upon experimentation exported from Germany and being used to develop perfect Cold Warriors.

From a strictly narrative standpoint, Shutter Island reflects its source material. The movie is unlike either of the recent Lehane adaptations, Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone , in that it's more gothic and atmospheric and divorced from the realities of modern tragedy. Shutter Island 's position as a period piece allows Scorsese's stylized perspective to work effectively. He borrows liberally from film noir and conventional horror, synthesizing a result that at times recalls the way in which Stanley Kubrick approached The Shining . It's unlikely any other director would have made Shutter Island in quite the same way. The place is a character. The stormy weather is a character. Even the loud, thunderous music is a character.

We recognize from the beginning that something is "off." Without going into details which might spell out too many of the narrative's detours, I can say that Scorsese conveys the influence of an unreliable narrator without explicitly revealing where the perspective diverges from an objective view of events. As a result, we can never fully trust what we're seeing. In most movies, it's an easy enough task to differentiate between dream sequences, flashbacks, and concrete reality. These elements are present in Shutter Island , but the lines between them blur. Only in retrospect is it possible to delineate them.

The problem with the film (to the extent that it is a problem) is that the central tragedies of Teddy's character are emotionally muted. They begin (in flashback) with his reaction to the concentration camp at Dachau where he arrives as a member of the liberating force and continue to a more recent event: the death of his beloved wife Dolores (Michelle Williams) in a fire. He is a tortured, haunted man, and those things only begin to reveal the demons that claw at his soul. Yet, perhaps because the structure necessitates this, Scorsese keeps the viewer at arm's-length. We observe the character from a distance and never empathize with him. We acknowledge his pain but don't experience it alongside him. For all that the craft of Shutter Island eclipses that of Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone , its emotional impact is inferior.

DiCaprio, who has become Scorsese's go-to actor in the post-DeNiro era, turns in another strong, mature performance. In the immediate wake of Titanic , DiCaprio allowed himself to cash in a little on his success but, over the years, he has gravitated more toward prestige projects working for respected directors (Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Same Mendes, Edward Zwick). Had Shutter Island maintained its original late-2009 release date, DiCaprio would have been in the running for a Lead Actor Oscar nomination. He is ably supported by screen legends Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow, who use their reputations to good effect. Mark Ruffalo is a little bland, but his character doesn't have much to do. The rest of the cast is comprised of accomplished character actors: Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas. (Contrary to a surprisingly long-legged rumor that's making the Internet rounds, DeNiro does not make an appearance.)

Shutter Island is satisfying in ways that February movies often are not. Like all solid thrillers, it engages while challenging the intellect. Its puzzle, while not as twisty as some, is nevertheless enticing to piece together. Yet it's easy to understand Paramount's reluctance to release the movie in the thick of the Oscar season because it's not really an awards-caliber movie. Shutter Island is enjoyable in part because of the way Scorsese approaches the material, but it is ultimately nothing more than a well-made genre effort. Relieved of the weight of Oscar expectations, perhaps Shutter Island will open up to audiences who view Scorsese as being too "artistic." After all, this production is many things, but pretentious is not among them.

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Shutter Island Movie Analysis

• Posted by - Birat Dahal
• On - April 20, 2020

When we talk about psychological thriller movies, Shutter Island is one name that usually pops up. It is an extremely complex thriller that must be watched a couple of times to fully understand. 

Shutter Island (2010)  is the fourth collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio.  Based on Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel of the same name, the film received mostly positive reviews from critics and was also one of the most successful movies of the year.

— Spoiler alert!   —

The movie begins with a ferry boat ride to Shutter Island, an island that holds a mental asylum for the criminally insane. Teddy, played by Leonardo Dicaprio believes he is a government Marshall looking for a missing patient named Rachel Solando, with the assistance of his accomplice Chuck. In reality, Ted is Andrew Laeddis, a war veteran, who was exposed to the most gruesome aspects of the already horrific war. In addition to that, he kills his wife who has murdered their three children. Whereas Chuck is Andrews’ therapist. 

Teddy and Chuck meet Dr. John Cawley, played by Ben Kingsley, lead psychiatrist of the facility, who explains a bit about the facility and psychiatry. Dr. Cawley says that there is a war going on in the island, with one faction who believes in surgical techniques like lobotomies to treat patients, where another side says that the new psychotropic drugs are the way to treat people.

Over the course of time Teddy begins to feel sick, which is accompanied by migraines and flashbacks from his experiences as a U.S. Army soldier and dreams of his deceased wife and kids.

Although the term PTSD (post-traumatic shock syndrome) isn’t used, Andrew played by DiCaprio shows numerous handsome symptoms. There are a series of dream sequences interspersed, flashbacks about Teddy’s time in WWII as a soldier, and Teddy often has internal conversations with himself in which his dead wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams), talks to him and gives him advice.

Andrew appears to have a fight between his conscious state, “Teddy”, and his unconscious state, “Andrew.” He is aware that his wife Dolores killed their children and that he murdered her out of rage. However, his defense mechanism drags him back to his self-made reality. In this way, Shutter Island can be seen as the perfect case of Freud’s theory of psychosis.

In the movie, Teddy also represents a person with a super ego-personality who tries to act with a good set of morals in every situation. From the moment he enters Shutter Island his sole motive is to find Rachel. Even though he keeps finding less evidence, he tries harder to solve the mystery of the missing person. This allows him to keep making up new reasons to live as Teddy Daniels, and not confront his truth. 

Teddy, while doing his “investigation” of the disappearance of the prisoner feels that the management by the Federal facility are obstructing his investigations as he is unable to access the records of employees and patients. He particularly wants to find out what goes on in the ward that’s reserved for the most serious offenders. In one point where both the marshalls are taking shelter from heavy rain, Teddy tells Chuck about his wife’s death and his theory about Shutter Island that it’s actually a place where dreadful mental experiments are done to transform patients into assassins. As he begins to peel away the layers of deceit, it becomes obvious that not all is as it seems.

In the last part of the movie, Dr. Cawley tells Andrew that the events of the past several days have been designed to break Andrew’s conspiracy -laden insanity by allowing him to play out the role of Teddy Daniels. He also says that all the hospital staff as part of the test, including Lester Sheehan posing as Chuck Aule and a nurse posing as Rachel Solando, the missing prisoner. Whereas Andrew’s migraines were withdrawal symptoms from his medication. 

At the end of the movie when we see Teddy come to his senses he remains in his alter reality, not being able to live with himself as a murderer. This is a clear case where his superego is still in effect. 

Shutter Island is a perfect movie for you to watch if you tilt towards the psychological thriller genre. 

Birat Dahal

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Shutter Island

• Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule, two US marshals, are sent to an asylum on a remote island in order to investigate the disappearance of a patient, where Teddy uncovers a shocking truth about the place.
• In 1954, up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston's Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital. He's been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons, but before long he thinks he's been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister. Teddy's shrewd investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, more dangerous criminals "escape" in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything - his memory, his partner, even his own sanity. — alfiehitchie
• Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels and his new partner Chuck Aule travel to a government-run institution for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, near Boston, when there is a report that a prisoner has gone missing. Daniels, weighed down with his own baggage, has his own reasons for wanting to get to the island. He is still traumatized from what he saw when his army unit liberated one of the Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II, and still haunted by his wife's more-recent death in a fire. The head of the hospital, Dr. John Cawley, treats him decently, but others give the agents a cooler reception. Daniels particularly wants to find out what goes on in the ward that's reserved for the most serious offenders. As he begins to peel away the layers of deceit, it becomes obvious that not all is as it seems. — garykmcd
• Assigned the thorny task of investigating the incomprehensible disappearance of a deranged child-murderess, troubled U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, travel to Ashecliffe Hospital: Shutter Island's impregnable asylum for the criminally insane. Soon, within the dark purgatory's thick stone walls, indescribable nuances of medical malpractice suggest that the institution's cryptic senior psychiatrists must be hiding something. Then, a raging tempest traps patients and investigators alike in the dark off-shore prison, triggering Teddy's crippling migraines and gruesome flashbacks of a haunting past. Is the already perplexed detective losing his grip on reality? — Nick Riganas
• U.S. Marshals Edward (Teddy) Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are called to Shutter Island, a federal mental hospital for the criminally insane, because a patient named Rachel has escaped the day before. Teddy has lost his family in an apartment fire years before. McPherson (Ted Levine) is the deputy warden. Males & females are in different buildings with the most dangerous patients in building C and the marshals are told not to go without McPherson & Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) accompanying them. They meet Dr. Cawley, who says one faction believes in surgical techniques like lobotomies to treat patients, where another side says that the new psychotropic drugs are the way to treat people. He explains that Rachel, had killed 3 of her kids & simply believed that they weren't dead. She thought the kids were in the hospital & all the staff were neighbors. Crawley refuses to share personnel files with Teddy. In Rachel's room they find a note saying, "Where is number 67?". At the staff meeting it emerges that Rachel's doc Shaheen has just left for a vacation. Teddy is furious. There are frequent flashbacks to Teddy's time in WWII as a soldier, and Teddy has internal talks where his dead wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams), gives him advice. Teddy's unit is the one that first encountered the Concentration Camp Dachau, with a dead woman and her dead daughter in her arms. Also, a German Commander tried to commit suicide by shooting himself, but survives & Teddy kicks the gun away so that he bleeds to death. Teddy admits to shooting all Nazi guards of the camp in cold blood. Dr. Naehring (Max Von Sydow) is Dr. Cawley's superior. He is German & Teddy doesn't like him. He tells Teddy that he won't share personnel records & Teddy is angry. Interviewing other patients suggests they are coached. One patient writes RUN in his notebook. Crawley also says that Rachael was on drugs to numb her mind & her biggest issue was her refusal to face what she had done. Teddy tells Chuck that he wanted to come to a mental institution as Laeddis, the arsonist who burnt his building down was sent to Shutter. But there is no paperwork. He also came across a prisoner George Noyce who was actually sent here & told Teddy about the research. Then Mcpherson asks them to change into patient whites, giving up their wet business suits. They are given different cigarettes & pills for Teddy's migraine. Crawley tells Teddy that Rachel has been found. in dream Teddy sees Laeddis (Elias Koteas) in Crawley's chair. Laeddis has a scar running from his right eye down to the left side of his chin. In another Rachael now replaces the dead Hebrew & her daughter asks Teddy why he didn't save her. In another she has killed all her kids & is asking Teddy to get rid of them. His wife appears tells him that Laeddis is still on Shutter. The next day the backup generators failed, and all of the patient's cell doors were therefore opened. Teddy & Chuck get into building C. Teddy finds George Noyce, He tells Teddy that the only way he can save Noyce is to forget his wife and Laeddis. Noyce tells him that Laeddis is no longer in C building, but that they have taken him to the lighthouse, where they are planning to do a lobotomy on him. Teddy wants to go to the lighthouse & Chuck dissuades him. Teddy goes anyways & finds the tide has cut off the lighthouse from the mainland. He finds a cave with a woman inside claiming to be Rachael, she says she was a doctor & resisted the lobotomy that helped patients forget their past & their pain. She warns Teddy to stop taking food, pills & cigarettes from the hospital & says that he will be committed by being declared insane, because he was asking too many questions about what was going on at Shutter. Teddy can't find Chuck & Crawley tells him that he came to the island alone. His wife appears again & implores him not to go to lighthouse. Teddy blows up Crawley's car & sneaks into the lighthouse to rescue Chuck whom he thinks has been kidnapped for mind experiments, checking each room but finding no operating rooms for surgical experiments. He Finds Crawley inside who has his gun which Teddy checked in. Crawley tells Teddy that he is patient of Shutter for 24 months & that the hospital has been doing a role play to get him to finally realize the truth. He calls in Dr. Sheehan, and it is Chuck! He agreed to play along with Teddy's fantasy and to keep tabs on him. Dr. Cawley tells Teddy that his real name is Andrew Laeddis and Edward Daniels is an anagram. The same with Rachael Solando & Dolores Chanal (his wife). Crawley says Teddy has created this alternate reality to escape from his crime that he cannot admit. He also says that Teddy hurt orderlies & Noyce 2 weeks ago & now the board of directors have voted to lobotomize Teddy unless he gives up his violence immediately. Thats why Crawley constructed the role play to prove the impossibility of Teddy's notions of conspiracy & to make him accept the truth. His wife Dolores was a manic depressive & Teddy ignored everyone's advice. She burnt down his apartment & he moved to a lake house where she drowned his kids. Teddy shot her. Crawley makes Teddy admit that he blamed himself for not realizing earlier that his wife was having trouble; that he feels responsible for killing his kids because he didn't get her help when she needed it. He created a fantasy world where he never killed his wife, and he never had a breakdown. Crawley tells him that they broke through Andrew once before, but he regressed. Next morning Teddy talks to Chuck about getting off the island showing that he has regressed. Chuck indicates for lobotomy. While going Teddy indicates that he is going voluntarily because he can't stand the truth.

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'Jackpot!' Review: John Cena and Awkwafina Go for Broke in Paul Feig’s Action-Comedy

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The Big Picture

• In Jackpot! , a new lottery in a dystopian L.A. requires the winner to stay alive until sundown while they are hunted by other ticket holders.
• The film blends a dark concept with crass comedy, featuring juvenile sex jokes, pop-culture references, and slapstick action sequences.
• Despite the on-paper appealing casting of Awkwafina and John Cena, Jackpot! fails to deliver, offering few laughs and a nonsensical storyline.

In the Prime Video film Jackpot! , the state of California implements a new kind of lottery where the winner makes a life-changing amount of cash, but only if they can stay alive within the borders of Los Angeles until sundown. The twist is that every other ticket holder can still claim the jackpot for themselves if they can manage to kill the winner within that time frame, turning each lotto drawing into a crazed, city-wide manhunt. Set in the 2030s, when the U.S. economy is worse than ever and homeless camps litter the streets, Jackpot! has a logline that sounds like it should come from a new Purge sequel or maybe a low-budget thriller that finally draws John Carpenter out of retirement. Instead, it arrives as a loud, crass, and deeply unfunny comedy courtesy of Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters (2016) director Paul Feig . It's tough to recall another recent example where a filmmaker and his material are so disastrously mismatched , and the end result is catastrophic for everyone involved.

Jackpot! (2024)

Jackpot! revolves around a futuristic "Grand Lottery" in California, where the twist is that the winner must be killed before sundown for the prize to be legally claimed. Katie Kim, who finds herself with the winning ticket and must survive with the help of Noel Cassidy, against various hunters. 

What Is 'Jackpot!' About

In Jackpot! , Awkwafina plays Katie Kim , a former child actor who returns to California to have another go at a Hollywood career after her ailing mother, who she had been caring for back in Michigan, passes away. In the first of the film's many senseless contrivances, Katie isn't even aware that the state has a new kind of lottery that activates the bloodlust of nearly all of Los Angeles, so she's completely befuddled when she accidentally activates a ticket she finds in a borrowed piece of clothing, is declared the winner, and suddenly finds herself being attacked by almost every person she comes in contact with. (All assaults are up close and personal as guns are banned by the lottery's rules.) One of the few people not trying to kill her is John Cena 's Noel, a "protection agent" who will work to keep her alive until sundown for a standard 10 percent of her winnings. A very confused Katie is reluctant to accept his offer at first but eventually comes to rely on Noel, especially once a bigger, shadier, and much more corporate protection agency, led by an old military buddy of Noel's played by Simu Liu , is drawn into their mad scramble for riches.

Based on that summation, you might assume that Jackpot! turns into a bloody gorefest, but you'd be wrong. The movie states its intentions in the first few moments, when the on-screen text that establishes the film's universe and rules ends with: "Some people call it dystopian. But those people are no fun." Working from a script by Rob Yescombe , Feig severely downplays the violent implications of the story to instead tell a light Hollywood satire stuffed with jokes that range from terrible (there's a character who's a deejay named DJ) to a lifeforce-draining level of dreadful. At one point, Machine Gun Kelly , seemingly just playing his current-day self even though the movie is set at least six years into the future, mistakenly thinks Cena wants to have sex with him and says, "You would turn my asshole into the Eye of Sauron . So let’s not go on that fellowship of my ring."

An end-of-movie blooper reel reveals that other equally bad options were considered for that retort, while also proving that you can't get away from Jackpot! 's juvenile sex jokes even once you've suffered through to the credits . Additionally, there are fart jokes, shart jokes, the insinuation that two supporting characters had sex with a wax recreation of The Wizard of Oz 's Tinman, and a lame, recurring bit about how Cena's character is unreasonably obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . If this is what counts for "fun," I'll happily trade it back in for a standard-issue, gloomy dystopia, please.

'Jackpot!' Is Frustrating and Annoying in Equal Measure

Almost every aspect of Jackpot! feels like a misfire , either for tonal or story-based reasons. Why a lottery that includes the attempted murder of the winner proves to be a bigger money-maker than the regular lottery is never addressed. And while I don't disagree that culture has stagnated, it's weird to see a movie supposedly set in a more hellish near future continually dropping lazy pop-culture references. (In addition to the TMNT thing and Machine Gun Kelly being around, there are shoutouts to Star Wars , The Karate Kid , the Kardashians , and more.) It's genuinely mystifying. Even worse, it's annoying. Early on in the movie, Katie is forced to deal with a ditzy Airbnb renter named Shadi ( Ayden Mayeri ), who quickly makes a strong case for being the most irritating and unwelcome character in a film this year. Cena and Liu, the latter of whom must be desperately waiting for Marvel to get him back on the schedule , end up in a screaming match about LaCroix sparkling water at one point.

Things aren't much better on the "action" side of this action-comedy . Again, it's a story choice to have the film's events play out as silly instead of violent. Because the Lottery commission has drones that follow Katie around and report her location at regular intervals, she and Noel are constantly under attack by young punks, wannabe actors, no-so-kindly grandmas, and anyone else who's within grabbing distance of a knife or hatchet. However, Katie and Noel, two people the movie continually insists are among the few "good people" left in a world gone mad, refuse to respond in kind, typically disarming and incapacitating their foes as pleasantly as possible. (At one point, Cena puts a helmet on an attacker before tossing them out of their moving vehicle because he doesn't want them to sustain a head injury.) Katie is surprisingly effective at fending off hordes of greedy maniacs, although the movie's explanation that it's because she once took a stunt-fighting class feels, like everything else, exceedingly flimsy. The fights themselves are slap-sticky, the kind of throwdowns you'd see in a Jackie Chan film but without someone as skilled as Chan gracefully centering the action and holding the frame.

The film's ideas about the struggle to remain a good person when times are bad and how the government will play us all against each other for its own gain are so simple, basic, and noncommittal that no real thematic throughline is ever able to emerge as a result. Jackpot! could be looked at as an allegory for fame and instant stardom — all the people trying to kill Katie to claim the jackpot are labeled as her "fans," and Katie's face is suddenly on every screen in the city — but that feels inconsequential and unprobed as well, probably because the filmmakers were more concerned about fitting in another couple of butthole jokes.

All of this is to say Awkwafina and Cena have both done far better work elsewhere . There are exactly two jokes here that got me to faintly smile. The first is when Awkwafina tells Cena he looks like "a bulldog that a witch cast a spell on and turned into a human against his will." Pretty accurate that. And, then, near the end of the movie, Awkwafina makes a crack about acting being a worthless endeavor as "fucking wrestlers and YouTubers are movie stars now." It's an easy joke about her and Cena's more humble origins, and it's likely less clever than the best joke from any randomly selected Deadpool scene . But, considering the laugh-free, 90-plus minutes that preceded it, this moderately amusing, self-referential crack felt like discovering an oasis after spending ages lost in the desert. The movie might be called Jackpot! , but no one is leaving this one a winner.

The action-comedy 'Jackpot!' attempts to blend a dystopian concept with a slapstick comic style, and the end result is disastrous.

• Pros? Uhh ... err ... well ...
• The combination of dystopian thriller and Paul Feig's brand of improv-heavy comedy make for an awkward fit.
• The near-future world established in 'Jackpot!' doesn't make a lick of sense.
• Awkwafina and John Cena can be incredibly appealing performers. But you're going to have to look elsewhere to see it.

Jackpot! is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S. starting August 15.

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