Shutter Island

From the first 5 minutes of watching this film, the twist was obvious. I was fairly suspicious of the twist from watching the trailer and when it was eventually revealed I felt the bitter-sweet of being right and the deep dissatisfaction that comes from not being proven wrong.

The sad thing is that the film is set up to be a thriller with this twist being the centre of the experience - the joy that comes from finding the answer to a riddle. Having it figured it out so early on only left me feeling impatient and frustrated as they dropped little clues throughout the film. This frustration lasted an incredibly long time as the film's runtime is almost 2h30. The better part of two hours is spent building up to this conclusion that didn't have the resonant effect that it should have. Worse still, this portion of the film suffers from poor characterisation, confusing plot-points and vain attempts at misdirection. I was really really bored. And hungry. And bored.

The irony here is, that when the twist is eventually revealed, the films picks up drastically. The end half hour or so is really quite emotional and the reveal showed some really interesting character development, excellently acted by DiCaprio, even if it served as a pretty lousy plot-point.

There were some interesting issues discussed. The nature of madness and the power of delusion. Also an interesting discussion between Daniels (DiCaprio) and the Warden in the car. Sadly, these are few and far between.

I may be alone in seeing the twist so early. I watched it with a friend who was entirely unaware until it was clearly stated at the end, but it certainly marred the experience for me. The film should've been much shorter and there should've been far more exploration into the natures of madness and sanity. It needed far more A Scanner Darkly and far less Enemy of the State-conspiracy-theory-thriller-paranoia-type-stuff.