Riding the coattails (albeit a few years later) of The Departed, Martin Scorsese once again unleashes questionable Boston accents and Leonardo DiCaprio on the unsuspecting public in Shutter Island. Shutter is a noir-styled tour through a sheltered mental asylum which harbors more than just unbalanced criminals. The head doctor (Kingsley) speaks in tangled euphemisms and the inmates warn visitors of its inescapability as DiCaprio (Teddy Daniels) searches for a missing patient. As soon as Daniels steps off the ferry onto the haunting island, dreamy visions of his deceased wife cloud his thoughts and caution him to not go prying too far into the past.

What also happens when he enters the gated colony is an aural assault of horrifyingly grating music. Before anything is known of the patients or Daniels’s tormented background, the loud beating of the orchestra tolls a foreboding sound. It is overbearing, especially so early in the film; this unnecessary booming continues throughout, clashing with the nuanced slights of the rest of the movie. Everything here is on a small scale allowing for a rise to a dramatic conclusion, but the music destroys any feeling of anticipation, crushing it under a wall of sound. This may seem like a small quibble given the film as a whole, but the intensity - both in volume and quantity - of this ear sore detracts from what is happening onscreen.

As with every mystery or suspense story, there is an explanatory reveal at the end. It may be straight, or convoluted, or a twist. Without spoiling too much, Shutter goes the route of twist - kind of. It comes in various pieces, each one more unbelievable than the next, and never fitting together to form a complete picture. The most basic twist, upon which all the rest build upon, is so conspicuous as to be written on the poster one-sheet. It should be the most spectacular moment - especially after spending over two hours with one character, nearly inside Daniels’s head - but it feels forced (the sanity and safety of the island’s medical staff should be called into question) and hacky.

I expected more out of Scorsese and Lehane based on their previous works (Mystic River aside) and the finale was a complete let down. Mark Ruffalo phones it in and Leonardo can’t effectively balance all of the novelties that come with playing a role that has three distinct characteristics: 1950’s timepiece, Boston heredity, and a tormented soul.

Kingsley, on the other hand, is fantastic. Even though I’ve seen him in this role before, there has to be some reason he always gets picked to play a stuffed-shirt psychologist: he’s damn good at it. The pacing was also good, keeping me interested for the majority of the movie (except the cave in the bluff scene), hoping that the ending would live up to its expectations. There were a couple additional intricacies and details to make it interesting, but nothing as memorable as one’s first viewing of The Sixth Sense or The Prestige.