Big-screen lobotomy

It ought to be enough to note that Martin Scorsese directed the lamentable (one might even say laughably bad) Gangs of New York (2002) to cast aspersions on the robustness of his once-legendary talents. Ah, but posters featuring Robert De Niro as Jake La Motta in Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980) and Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) still line the walls of college dorm rooms everywhere.

The notion that Scorsese remains a cinematic genius is a pervasive misconception, with critics and cineastes alike continuing to pay heed to his increasingly delusional artistic outlook. But his latest effort, Shutter Island, is more evidence of the declining powers of a once-remarkable director.

A messy and implausible psychological thriller, Shutter Island is set on a small island in Boston Harbor that acts as an impregnable and inescapable asylum for the criminally insane - sort of an accursed Alcatraz on the Eastern seaboard. The year is 1954, and two U.S. marshals (Leonardo DiCaprio as Teddy Daniels and Mark Ruffalo as Chuck Aule) are bound for the island to investigate the mysterious disappearance of an inmate, er, patient. Daniels quickly discovers that the hospital - a macabre freak show of psychosis and violence - houses a terrible secret. But then, Daniels already suspected as much, due to some digging he'd done on his own after the man who murdered his wife disappeared into the asylum's opaque bureaucratic structure.

A storm is brewing - literally and figuratively - as the two marshals investigate the institution under the guise of following up on the alleged escape. It all builds to a fever pitch as Daniels finds himself alone against an army of ghoulish sadists, until a surprising twist unravels the narrative and recasts events retroactively.

The film's "insights" into the psychological profession and the nature of insanity are childishly superficial, with one group of doctors battling against the other regarding the efficacy of ice-pick lobotomies versus a combination of role play and talk therapy.

The production values are equally clichéd. Longtime collaborator Robbie Robertson provided material for a soundtrack that is about as subtle as a house fire, hammering the desired mood and crucial emotional transitions into the audience in as indelicate and obvious a fashion as anything to come out so far this year. Evidently, the boastful composer was pleased with the results of his efforts (even if your faithful critic was not), opining on Paramount's Web site that the score for the film is "the most outrageous and beautiful soundtrack I've ever heard."  

Such disassociation with reality has become indicative of Scorsese's overall aesthetic. Gone are the days of Goodfellas (1990), when authenticity and attention to detail were the director's signature strengths. His asylum is fitted out with stock horror-film accoutrements, and the legion of crazies is all ghoulish makeup and silly-looking physical abnormalities.

The acting is intermittently strong, with only a few glaring errors in judgment. DiCaprio is convincingly intense, chewing the scenery with conviction and evident distress. Ruffalo seems slightly off-pitch for much of the film, but, when all is revealed, his approach to the role is redeemed as spot-on. Ben Kingsley is at his best as the mannered chief psychiatrist, betraying a sympathy for his unlucky wards that adds an eerie depth to the part.

When all the twists are at last on the table, the storyline veers from odd to utterly implausible. The screenplay - adapted from Dennis Lehane's novel by Laeta Kalogridis - is straining to be clever and cinematic, but the results are mixed at best. If Scorsese keeps picking projects like the majority of those he's pushed in recent years, even his seemingly ironclad legacy may be in danger.

James Walling can be reached at
jwalling@praguepost.com