Shutter Island (2010)

Scorsese amplifies the pulp intensity of Lehane's novel into a vivid waking nightmare, using every tool to create fevered Grand Guignol horror that aligns the audience with DiCaprio's obsessed character.

Scorsese crafts a gripping, atmospheric haunted-house thriller set on a remote island asylum, evoking classic noir and Hitchcock with flawless command and a focus on dread and sensory unease. The director's control and the film's cohesive vision stand out even amid twists that may divide viewers on first viewing.

Scorsese delivers a divinely dark and devious brain-tease noir with smart cops, tough cases, and clever genre nods that make for pure pleasure in watching the unraveling. The film stands as a new noir classic centered on DiCaprio's twisting performance.

An impeccably assembled genre thriller that negotiates familiar noir territory with fresh insight and a fiendish rug-pulling reveal; the journey is satisfying thanks to strong performances (especially DiCaprio) and striking visuals from Richardson and Ferretti.

The critic notes the psychodrama twist may be predictable but there is fun in the operatic thrills and gothic style drawn from classic horrors and melodramas. It is overlong and overly explained yet weaves an impressive spell through pure style.

A hyper-devious mind-game movie executed with panache and a superb cast that is more audacious, challenging and entertaining than most Hollywood genre films, though flawed by sensationalism and a lapse of taste in its Dachau backstory.

Scorsese revives B-movie energy and dread with tremendous style in this 1954-set asylum mystery, but the allusions and gestures feel light and rhetorical rather than deeply meaningful, resulting in something no better than a B-plus. The focus stays on the maddening spectacle rather than a tight whodunnit.

The critic finds it a frustrating cobwebbed box of tricks and twists despite strong atmosphere and performances. Scorsese comes close to horror but the film fails to reward rewatches.

The critic calls it a berserk meandering story taken seriously by all involved, making it ludicrous yet entertaining. It lacks the power of earlier Scorsese works but is his most enjoyable in a decade.

Scorsese delivers strong visual signatures and set pieces but the film fails to balance its institutional thriller and psychodrama elements, resulting in an ungrounded narrative undermined by hallucinations and exposition.

Scorsese amplifies every detail into frantic, demented spectacle in this twisty thriller, but the result feels like a catastrophe of overdone artifice and unreliable narration that ultimately undermines itself. The atmosphere of uncertainty and dread is conjured effectively at first but gives way to disappointment.

Scorsese enjoys himself in this nearest thing to a horror film since Cape Fear, delivering sumptuous, enthralling gothic filmmaking with a hardboiled heart and sly asylum humour after the trickery of the plot is set aside.

The critic finds it clearly flawed but entirely involving as a superb genre thriller elevated by Scorsese's skill. It weaves an impressive spell and remains too engrossing to deny despite overstaying its welcome.

The critic sees the film as Scorsese's homage to 1940s and 1950s cinema and a return to paranoid interior worlds. It is praised as a genuine study of madness that elevates pulp material through kinetic classical stylisation.

Scorsese triumphs with a powerful noir pastiche that sends Leonardo DiCaprio into a world of madness and paranoia. It is a dazzling pastiche of a Hollywood movie of the 1940s and 50s, hugely enjoyable, the work of a master.

The critic calls Scorsese's film a technically dazzling high-wire act of paranoia that grips from the start and showcases the director's skills, but questions whether it represents a commercial digression from his more serious work.

The critic calls Shutter Island a singular, unforgettable psychological horror that solves madness rather than a mystery, praising Scorsese's technical mastery and DiCaprio's worn, compelling lead performance as the damaged marshal.

Scorsese delivers a masterful blend of gothic ghost story and pulpy noir that approaches the Platonic form of the genre. The critic praises the director's absolute mastery of his art through deft craftsmanship and metacinematic allusions that make the film a pleasure even when the twists are anticipated.

The critic finds Scorsese's psychological thriller gripping and entertaining, with dazzling aesthetic effects that explore madness and the blurring of reality and imagination through striking dream sequences and a disquieting score. It melds classical Hollywood reverence with fresh flair and an understanding of cinema's surreal properties.

The film is an overlong and over-the-top B-movie exercise in noir tropes and Hitchcockian paranoia that lacks subtlety and emotional engagement. While admiring the music, some performances including Ben Kingsley's, and visual flair, the critic finds it slow, predictable, and ultimately not thrilling or dramatic enough.