Think of Shutter Island — the much anticipated mystery/thriller from movie master Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, The Departed) — as the act of a master stage magician slightly past his prime.  His production values are top notch, and the performances of his stage hands make for great diversions, but his technique isn’t as refined as it used to be.  His sleight of hand isn’t so ‘slight’ anymore. We therefore catch him in the act of deception, and before he has time to finish the trick, we’ve sussed it all out.

But the magic isn’t lost. Against all odds, Shutter Island remains a good, borderline great, film purely because Scorsese still knows how to put on one hell of a show. The visual grandeur, pitch-perfect tenor and captivating performances is more than enough to keep the film in sailable waters, despite the often clumsy plotting. Still, it’s a shame that there is a problem at all, considering  Dennis Lehane’s mind-mulling story is brimming with great characters and clever concepts. The issue comes lies with the clunky way in which it has been adapted to the screen, where  information is fed to the audience in blatant chunks of exposition, making it almost impossible not to notice the trickery being conducted.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Teddy Daniels, a US Marshall assigned to help investigate the whereabouts of a missing patient from the psychiatric hospital on Shutter Island. Surrounded almost entirely by a perilous cliff face and with only one way in or out, the fictitious island situated off of America’s east coast is the perfect location for an insane asylum, and for that matter, a 50s-styled horror movie.  With the help of his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), Teddy starts asking around only to find straight answers hard to come by, particularly from the institute’s chief physician Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), who claims his methods of rehabilitation to be of a calming and nurturing nature.

Teddy doesn’t buy it. If there’s anything the Second World War taught him as a soldier – which we see in stunningly recreated flashbacks and creepy dream sequences — it’s that people are inherently brutal. He’s convinced there’s something much more sinister happening on the island, and although a Category 5 hurricane looms, he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.

While the plot tends to thrash about like it has been unwillingly strapped in a straight jacket, Shutter Island remains entirely  absorbing for one key reason; atmosphere. From  the immaculately dressed sets, amalgamation of eerie locations, cleverly manipulated lighting and a score that reverberates through your skull with nothing less than the sound of pure doom, the film is engulfed in such a ominous atmosphere, it just about seeps off the screen. In the same way Stanley Kubrick brought to life the isolated hotel setting in The Shining, Scorsese has constructed the imagined isle with great attention to detail and an acute awareness of space.  Grand set pieces are favoured over digital environments, lending a  fantastic tangibility to the setting often missing from digital-heavy films.  It makes for a deeply immersive experience, and much like the Overlook Hotel from Kubrick’s film, you never once feel at ease being on Shutter Island, which is how the film manages to keep you on the edge of your seat for over two hours.

Having cast DiCaprio in no less than four films, Scorsese knows exactly how to get the performance he wants out of the maturing actor in a role you wouldn’t normally associate him with.  Teddy is a deceivingly complex character, with a great big chip on his shoulder, and it’s really a credit to DiCaprio’s talent that he pulls it off so convincingly.  The 35 year old actor still has that Titanic glint in his eye that marks him as a man of passion, compelling us to follow him head-first on his downward spiral into the deepest and darkest secrets of the Island. Just as perfectly cast is Mark Ruffalo as Teddy’s agreeably soothing partner and Ben Kingsley as the politely spoken chief doctor, who unnerves in a ‘can’t-put-my-finger-on-it’ kind of way. Elsewhere, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer and Jackie Earle Haley all have a memorable impact in their brief but vital roles, which to discuss in any detail would spoil the mystery.

Chances are, though, you’ll spoil it for yourself, probably before the 20 minute mark if you’re a genre buff.  It was never going to be easy for screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis to adapt a film with such a twisted agenda, especially since The Sixth Sense fooled us back in 1999 and consequently made us more aware moviegoers.  But subtly in deception is the key here, and there’s not quite enough of it. What there’s an abundance of, however, is good ol’ fashioned movie magic, where the fun is not in how it ends, but in the journey getting there.

Follow the author Anders Wotzke on Twitter.

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