Shutter Island

I'm not what you'd call a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio. And I've never really considered myself a fan of Martin Scorsese. I know that there are people out there that consider anything Scorsese directs to be epic. Not long ago I broke down and watched The Departed after hearing so many of my friends telling me how awesome it was. And you know what? It was pretty much awesome.

So this new film, Shutter Island, was released and I thought the trailers looked interesting. I'm generally a fan of a scary, ghost story type of movie, which is what the trailers led me to believe this was. I was wrong.

That doesn't mean I didn't like it. When I left the theater last night, I thought it was just all right. It wasn't spectacular. It didn't blow my mind. In fact, I thought there were a number of aspects of the story that were fairly predictable. But knowing how many movies I've seen, it's hard to come across a movie that is completely surprising.

I'll give it to DiCaprio, I've been impressed by his acting of late. I decided some time ago that I didn't like him simply based on Titanic, a movie that I just don't like out of principle. I think it's stupid for reasons that I won't go into here. So despite Shutter Island's predictable plot, Leo did a good job with the part he played. As did Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, and the guy that played Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs.

I heard someone recently say that, for a Scorsese flick, this one is mediocre. But, they added, mediocre Scorsese is still better than a lot of Hollywood's best. I'm not sure about all that. But I thought this one was worth the time.