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Studio:Paramount Home Entertainment (UK)

Director:Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer

Running Time:138 minutes

Product Description

Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer

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Reviews

- Shutter Island on Blu-Ray

"Shutter Island" ticks all the right boxes as a new BD release. Picture quality is very high with excellent sharpness and fine detail in shots of all focal length. But, as so often, it is particularly the close-ups that fascinate with depth and plasticity. Colours and contrasts are spot-on, with colours only appearing unnatural, and clearly intentionally so, in certain exceptional sequences: whether they are to be described as dreams, flash-backs, hallucinations or something else, is very much part of the film's narrative secrets, and not to be stated in advance!

Sound quality is excellent, with immersive use of surround effects. Generally the balance of dialogue to louder FX is well achieved, although dialogue is sometimes a little quiet, but this seems part of an intention to build atmosphere through whispered dialogue and so forth, and the 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack establishes the movie's sinister atmosphere very well from early on right up to the conclusion.

The film itself has received some criticism for being "predictable". I must admit that having seen a film based on a similar twist many years ago (I won't say which one :-)!) its power to surprise me was somewhat hamstrung. It probably is fair to say that it is not that hard to guess the approximate nature of what is going on, but to guess the precise nature is not that easy, and I think this allows the film enough of a twist to prevent an anti-climax. Predictable or not, the plot is a compelling and interesting one, and never lagged or allowed any hint of boredom, as far as this viewer was concerned. The acting is terrific, with Von Sydow, Kingsley and DiCaprio the true heavyweights, although Mark Ruffalo also makes a good job of his somewhat straight-mannish role.

For me, this film was one of the absolute cinematic highlights of 2010 so far. A clear recommendation on Blu-Ray. Don't miss it!

- Read the book first

I've just finished reading the book, as recommended by other reviews on Amazon, and can only say it's absolutely brilliant, can't wait for the film to come out on DVD/Blueray now.

- Tense and dark thriller

For a start I did not expect to see Leonardo DiCaprio in a movie like this! However he played the part very well. I had no idea what the story was about and was a little bit confused at the start but as it unravelled it had me on the edge of my seat. The Island itself was a fantastic location and the characters all appeared to be hiding something dark and dangerous! One never knew what to believe. It was scary in places expecially the patients who had been sent there as it apparently was loosly based on a real mental asylum about 50 years ago! Watch the movie and see for yourself - you can't imagine! The more that I watched it I wanted DiCaprio and his collegue to leave and was practically shouting at the TV as I knew something bad was going to happen. Well I didn't guess for one minute?
I would not have wanted to know anything beforhand as I think it would have spoiled the plot and the ending for sure. I want to watch it again as it is one of those films that you miss little things the first time round.

- Way to long!

As the storyline is a standard tried and tested psychological thriller less than an hour into the film its pretty obvious where its going and what the twist may be but then it takes another hour to actually get to what was obvious in the first place. A second twist added in for good measure does nothing but prolong the agony of a film well over 2 hours long. Yes the acting is good and yes its well filmed but then you would expect that from a Martin Scorsese film. Worth watching for a nights rental but it's nothing special.

- Below Average

I saw the trailers for this at the cinema and thought it looked good. However, they weren't representative of the film.
Its not really the thriller it purports to be, and the plot isn't really that good. Also, I realised I couldn't really care less about the characters anyway. They were extremely one-dimensional.
The film is quite predictable but it takes quite a while to get where you know its going to go.
Personally I'd only advise you to buy it if you've seen everything else or if you have more money than sense.