Shutter Island (2010)

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. Proceed carefully.

Before "Shutter Island" began, an Old Spice commercial played on screen. It had some stud mocking average guys, telling women in the audience, "Look at me. Now look at your man. Look back at me. Now look back at your man." The gist of the commercial: Guy on screen is cool, suave and built. Flabby guy in the seat (that'd be me) next to the lady (Jenn!) is not. But, if I used Old Spice I could be like that.

Why am I talking about this goofy commercial in a film review? Hold on.

"Shutter Island" has been sold as the shocker film of 2010, a mind-twisting masterpiece from Martin Scorsese, starring his Gen X muse, Leonardo DiCaprio. The ads proclaim, "Did you guess the ending?" Umm, yeah, I did. Right away, actually. Then I had 2 hours 15 minutes to kill in my theater seat. And I wasn’t happy about it.

See, DiCaprio plays Teddy, a U.S. marshal who looks like he just stumbled off the red-eye flight from L.A. to Boston, having slept wrapped in a laundry sack in the luggage berth. His tie looks like a wet, dead goose around his neck, and his hat is crap. He looks homeless. As the 1954-set film opens, Teddy is on a ferry and meets his out-of-the-blue new partner, Chuck (Mark Ruffalo). The men are on their way to Shutter Island, a water-locked New England asylum for the criminally insane, to investigate the apparent escape of a child murderess. The men briefly discuss the case. Then Chuck calls Teddy "boss." Boss. And I knew the whole film. In three minutes.

Why? (OK, I'm getting to my Old Spice point now.)

Ladies, gents, Look at Ruffalo. Look at DiCaprio. Look back at Ruffalo. Now look back at DiCaprio. Now look at me. In what reality would Ruffalo ever call DiCaprio "boss"? Other than by sarcasm or to make DiCaprio think he's the "boss." See, Ruffalo's Chuck is cool, suave and built, with a tie so sharp it could slice bread. Ruffalo's Chuck is older, dapper, shines wisdom and could own Leo's Teddy. Teddy is not Chuck’s boss. Not by a mile. And Chuck would never call Teddy such.

A lot of critics and movie fans love "Shutter" because it's directed by SCORSESE and stars DICAPRIO, that is, the greatest living American film director and the best American actor of Generation X. Not me. This film, all moods and rain and pounding, dread-filled music, is a disappointment. Even with the Hitchcock themes and Euro-horror nods and rogues gallery of former movie villains and serial killers as red-herring co-stars (Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Jackie Earle Haley, John Carroll Lynch and Ted Levine among them) the movie fails to provide goose bumps.

As I said, Teddy and Chuck are out to find a deranged female patient who mysteriously vanished from her high-security cell. The men attempt to solve the how, where and why, as the creepy nice higher-ups who run the rock island (Von Sydow and Kingsley) do everything they can to hinder the case. Meanwhile, touchy, twitchy Teddy is having nightmares about his dead wife (Michele Williams) and his WWII Army days when he helped liberate a Nazi death camp. Not ironically, Teddy knows two things: His dead wife's killer is on the island and the goons running the place are doing brain experiments, because they’re Nazis. Or Commies. (I can’t recall). Teddy knows people know things, and he wants to save the day and be the hero. The boss. See?

Scorsese is a brilliant director, and he places scenes in dark, dank, cave-like cells with panache, and the nightmare sequences have this crazy feel that’s just left of a Dali painting come to life. The full cast is marvelous, with awesome people like Levine ("The Silence of the Lambs") showing up to steal the film.

So it's not all bad. This all would be mostly passable, even with me knowing the big shocker secret.

But "Shutter" also is a cumbersome, heavy-handed ride filled with loooong scenes of people talking about this guy they met who knows this other guy who knows a secret. At one point, Kingsley goes all Glenn Beck-drooling mad and whips out a freakin' diagram (!) for Teddy (that is, us) explaining names. At that point, I didn’t care. And I don't care if Internet bloggers point out a last-minute, blink-and-you-miss-it shocker. So there. (I imagine reading the Dennis Lehane novel that inspired this film is infinitely more interesting, or so I hope.)

If this were an M. Night Shyamalan film with Bruce Willis, I'd be OK. My expectations would be lower. But Scorsese, he of "Goodfellas" and "Cape Fear," and DiCaprio, with Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" and "Aviator" behind him? Sorry. "Shutter" is a massive letdown. Not even Old Spice can make this flabby bird into a stud. (See how I wrapped around to that left-field beginning?) C