Shutter Island Reviews

When the big reveal hits, it's the first big yawn of the film, and the tension dies a sudden death as we wait impatiently for the film to tie up all of its loose ends.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10

It's not bad, but as Scorsese, America's greatest living filmmaker and film history buff should know, even Hitchcock came up short on occasion.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Scorsese is capable of making a fascinating psychological thriller, but this effort is sub-Tarantino, without the irony.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

... a big, boiling MacGuffin stew of a movie, a Hitchcockian experiment in audience manipulation that slaps its artificiality in your face like a gold G-man's shield.

Full Review | Original Score: 82/100

It is not Scorsese's finest offering by a long way, leaving us disoriented but ultimately unfulfilled as the cops get their answers.

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Shutter Island is hysterical, in the clinical and cinematic senses, followed by plodding, just when a potboiling contraption cannot afford to be.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island walks a fine line between institutional thriller and what-is-reality? inquest.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Shutter Island is a surface movie without even much surface; it's awash in stale ideas and character actors like Patricia Clarkson and Jackie Earle Haley who show up every 20 minutes to give us some handy exposition, and then leave.

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Scorsese pays stylish homage to classic noir and psycho-dramas, but Shutter Island is a mostly sluggish endeavor, even after the dark secrets are exposed.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

A serviceable mystery/thriller that nevertheless feels emotionally scattered and for some, predictable.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

Having Martin Scorsese direct a silly psychological thriller like this is like inviting a famous chef over to boil some hot dogs and open a can of baked beans.

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Believe it or not, toward the end of the film, Leo gets down on his knees, looks up at the heavens and a craning camera and shouts "Nooooooooooo!" Just like Principal Skinner.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

The problem, then, arrives in the film's hurried final act, where a hitherto steady narrative gives way to an engorged twist that, whilst believable, insults the audience's comprehension of everything that has come before.

Behind the feverish mood there's only fumbled surrealism and Psychiatry 101

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Frantic psychological thriller is beautifully crafted but suffers from a surfeit of plot ingredients.

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Unsuccessful but fascinating and often entertaining attempt from Martin Scorsese to wrangle with baroque pulp fiction - by turns compelling, hysterical and silly.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

I tried to get lost on Shutter Island, but am sad to say even with its ominous tone and dreary setting I found myself dreading its predictable tale.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

You can almost feel Martin Scorsese straining to create some magic, given the pounding music, ominous cinematography, jaw-clenching close-up performances and overblown gothic flashbacks.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

An overlong, nauseating thriller lacking palpable suspense and clever twists which can't be saved by its exquisite production values and solid performances.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.0/10

Shutter Island pays homage to film noir thrillers without giving us any new thrills.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

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