A classic beyond reasonable doubt

***** 12 Angry Men (1957)

There are dozens of reviews, critiques, essays and journal articles published on 12 Angry Men that would render any praises I write superfluous. Here's a quick summary of the consensus: superb writing, brilliant performances and masterful direction by an American master. With that out of the way, I offer my paltry two cents...

I keep thinking about the premise of the film. It's deceptively simple - twelve men enter a room and argue over a crime. Eleven jurors are convinced the defendant committed murder; one juror is doubtful. I emphasize that last word because I originally wrote: "Eleven jurors are convinced a man committed murder; one juror is convinced he didn't." As great a tagline that would've been, it's a very, very misconstrued synopsis of the film.

Doubt is at the crux of the story. The one juror's (Henry Fonda) plea to the other men is not for them to share his convictions; rather, he asks them to be open to uncertainty. "I just want to talk," he states. "It's not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first." Drawing a line between certainty and doubt becomes all the more pressing when a young man's life hangs in the balance.

Whether the defendant is actually guilty or not, however, is besides the point. I made the mistake of assuming that at the end (spoiler alert), the twelve men prove the defendant didn't commit the crime. On the contrary, the jury doesn't really prove anything. Every bit of fact and evidence were still the same from beginning to end and nothing substantial had changed. What did change, however, were the men's perceptions - what they once deemed to be irrefutable evidence of guilt were re-examined in a different light and, in doing so, their motives and biases surfaced. As the margin for doubt grew wider, each juror was forced to confront his rationale for voting guilty/not guilty.

Who are we when we can no longer stand by our convictions? The film compels us to ask this question as we are made to identify with each character's struggle to acquiesce to the realm of uncertainty. Doubt is not an easy thing to stomach but is of supreme importance when we make decisions that render significant consequences. 12 Angry Men brilliantly reveals the nature of uncertainty and shows how very often our prejudices belie our perceived beliefs and convictions.

Why isn't this going away?!

* Eclipse (2010)

Holy crap this was one horrible movie. I...I have no words. I'm so ashamed to even admit that I watched it, but I have to vent. There is something seriously flawed with our society if a movie like Eclipse gets eaten up by the millions. And to think, this was the BEST one in the franchise, critically speaking?! It's like going to a restaurant in a new city, eating the most gawdawful bile in the world, and then finding out that joint serves the best food in the entire area. It's depressing.

Where do I start with the film? The dialogue. The acting. The direction. The story. Yeah, it pretty much had none of those elements. You know you're in trouble when the best line in the movie is, "I'm hotter than you." It was the only time during the film when I laughed out loud because the comedy was (I hope to God) intentional. The rest of the time I cringed, I gagged, I suffered.

Fortunately, I didn't watch the first two films so I'll try to write as few words possible recounting the plot - which won't be too hard since it's already absurdly thin. A scorned vampire Victoria (played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who, despite her talents, seems to have a knack for starring in atrociously bad movies), raises an army of vampires to kill vampires who were formerly her vampire friends. Hmm, I think that about sums it up. Oh, yes...and then there was the other 90 minutes where the lead character Bella is struggling to choose between her brooding vampire lover Edward and her maddeningly-shirtless-every-scene werewolf friend Jacob. This doesn't count as plot because the action goes nowhere.

For some reason, unbeknownst to and way beyond me, the other vampires and werewolves stick their necks out to protect Bella from the evil vampires. And that's what makes this so damn perplexing to watch. There is absolutely nothing (NOTHING!) special about Bella. Her most selfless act in the movie was smearing tiny droplets of her blood on trees and leaves to distract the evil vampires from capturing her. "I want to do everything I can to help in this battle," she says solemnly. Really? You couldn't just...die and save us all the trouble? There's a young vampire (spoiler alert) that gets killed in the climactic battle at the end, and I couldn't help but cheer for her because she won't have to star in another Twilight film again.

To all my teenage female readers (comparable, I'm sure, to the Twilight fanbase) - please stop following this trash! I urge you to consider all the other great tormented love stories that are out there. Pride and Prejudice. Wuthering Heights. Dawson's Creek. Anything but Twilight, which I'm starting to suspect was written by manatees floating in a tank.

The 80s: the decade of Reagan and AIDS

*** Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

As far as guilty pleasures go, I'm not sure how far this one would rank. Not because I didn't enjoy it (which I did) but because at no point did I feel guilty for watching it. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to make a movie about a hot tub time machine, release it under the name Hot Tub Time Machine, and have a character utter the phrase, "It must be some kind of...hot tub time machine," while staring deadpan at the camera. Chutzpah that merits admiration, not shame.

If the plot wasn't conspicuous enough in its wonderfully worded title, perhaps this brief synopsis will bring one up to speed: four friends gather together for a weekend getaway on a ski resort, get plastered, and hop into a hot tub that magically transports them back to the 80s. A setup like the one mentioned needs no apology. Even the mysterious origin of the hot tub time machine is cheerfully overlooked - an inconsequential detail that no one in the film cares to explain. And really, do we need an explanation of how it works? It's a f****** hot tub time machine!

Despite its seemingly vacuous appeal, however, the film is not without brains and is surprisingly sharp in its own inane off-the-wall way. A running dilemma throughout the movie is whether or not each character chooses to recreate the events that happened in 1986, thereby curbing the ripples of the "the butterfly effect" (Rob Corddry's eyes bulging when he exclaims, "that was a f****** awesome movie!" is just one of the many reasons why this is his breakout vehicle). The problem with re-living the past, however, is that nobody wants to go back to the dreary humdrum existence they lived before their vault on a hot tub DeLorean. There's a bit of Groundhog Day at play here that's subtly wedged in between the vomit takes and sex gags. Infusing meaning into existence with the power of choice? Kierkegaard would've been proud.

All philosophical digressions aside, the film is zealously raunchy, at times witty and never short on tongue-in-cheek. Do watch if in the mood to veg out on a Saturday night and giggle/laugh out loud/be shocked in disgust, depending on your sense of humor and level of sophistication. I'm proud to say that I still enjoy a good projectile spewing, especially when it obliterates small rodent creatures.

Stark shortcomings

** Iron Man 2 (2010)

I hate it when "not enough action" gets thrown into a discussion about movies. Hate it. It's probably the worst line of criticism and something a ten-year-old might say after watching The Godfather. And yet...

I really don't want to say it. Remember that sketch from Chappelle's Show that made Dave Chappelle quit the show? The one about resisting the urge to fall into your own stereotypes, even though you can't help it? That's how I'd feel if I said Iron Man 2 didn't have enough action. I'd feel like I'm falling prey to the studio execs' assessment of the general population's taste. Just another dumb American who wants his thrills for a 120 minutes, thereby adding his Hamilton to the 120 million dollar box-office weekend.

But I do want my thrills, as long as they come with the promise of quality (good story, writing - the fundamentals). And it's not to say that Iron Man 2 didn't come with quality, it's just that...well, I just didn't care. I didn't care whether Tony Stark was going through a personal crisis, or that he was being stalked by a psychotic Russian physicist (Mickey Rourke, the scariest looking physicist if I ever met one), or that he was being ousted by another weapons mogul (Sam Rockwell), or that he was still in ambiguous terms with his assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Why didn't I care? I almost did, in the scene where Tony comes across an old reel that showed his late father, but moments like those were too few and far in between. The rest of the film had a little too much Rat Pack smarminess that didn't sit well like it did in the first Iron Man.

And all this affects the action. A great story will make the audience care about the action (i.e. Spider-Man 2, the gold standard for comic book movies) because they're emotionally invested. Iron Man 2 doesn't have a great story like it's predecessor and even though it's fun to watch, the action feels flat and there just isn't enough. Damn it all, I said it. If anyone needs me, I'll be at the test screening for Transformers 3...

More than just bowling...or is it?

**** The Big Lebowski (1998)

It's probably best not to read too much into The Big Lebowski. The biggest pleasure in this film (or at least for me, anyway) was watching the manic energy/chemistry/wackiness between the Dude (Jeff Bridges) and Walter (John Goodman) that left me wondering how they got through each take without cracking up every time. Never mind the craft (pitch perfect in terms of delivery and timing) and let me be honest for a minute - by the end of the movie, I was laughing my ass off. Alone. In the middle of the night.

I wish I had more thoughtful things to write about the movie but because it's such an acid trip of a film (and partly because my brain is so fried from watching it) I feel it's best, at least for now, to prevent myself from dissecting it so as to not egregiously offend anyone who belongs to the church of Lebowski. Is it a satirical statement about the not-so-perceptive warmonger/pacifist debates in post-Gulf War society? A subtle send-up of noir and Westerns in Ken Kesey-esque fashion? Maybe. Probably. I don't know and, to some degree, I don't care to know. I know The Big Lebowski was written by smart people (the Coens brothers, for Hay-Zeus' sake), acted in by smart people and, in it's own inane way, it's a very smart film. But I'm not going to be pretentious and say that I enjoyed it for all the smart reasons. I enjoyed the goofy parts dammit, especially the part with a Folger's can taking the place of a cremation urn (hence the laughing alone in the middle of the night).

I'm not even going to bother writing a synopsis of the labyrinthine plot and just say that it involves mistaken identity, kidnapping, nihilists, postmodern pseudo-artists, seedy pornographers and bowling. Lots and lots of bowling. If you don't like The Big Lebowski, it's because it's either too above or beneath you, but it definitely can't be anywhere in between.

Menace II America

*** Crips and Bloods: Made in America

The opening claim in the film is startling: the long-running feud between the Crips and Bloods has claimed five times as many lives as the sectarian conflict in northern Ireland. It may seem absurd to think that gang violence could be on par with civil war, but when one considers the history of unrest and turmoil that's devastated the lives and communities of African-Americans in South L.A., the comparison doesn't appear as far fetched as it seems. Over the course of forty years, almost 19,000 lives were lost because of gang-related rivalry and violence.

Narrated by Forrest Whittaker, Crips and Bloods: Made in America examines the sociological and historical roots of gang violence in South L.A. The film traces back to the period after the Civil War when African-Americans began migrating from the South to urban, industrialized areas like Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles. Their supposed freedom from oppression wound up being short-lived; in the cities, too, blacks were discriminated from equal opportunities and were subject to racial segregation. Sustained periods of tension and hostility in these cities, particularly in L.A., boiled over into some of the most historically notorious riots and simultaneously sparked gang culture among young black men. Begotten from racial bigotry and hatred ("made in America"), gangs gave blacks an outlet for their frustration and anger and instilled in them a sense of empowerment they felt was lacking in the non-violent civil rights movement. "Everyday [we're] being fed with a spoonful of hatred," Kumasi, a founding gang member, reminisces. "It's just a question of when is this going to erupt."

Some of the highlights of this documentary come from interviews with former and current gang members. Their sharp and introspective commentaries offer harrowing accounts of gang life and create a vivid picture of survival in an urban jungle. One of the more heartrending scenes in the film shows mothers silently grieving over their deceased sons, most of whom didn't live past the age of 20. The devastating ramifications of having entire generations of black males either incarcerated or dying at an early age is conveyed powerfully through the testimonies of victims who have lost either a friend, brother, father or son to gang violence.

At times, however, Crips and Bloods is too sprawling and loses focus on its subject matter (the rise of the Crips isn't brought up until thirty minutes into the film). Clocking in at just barely an hour and a half, the film tries to cover too much ground in too little time. It would've been preferable to hear from some of the more fascinating interviewees, among them a former gang member who left his crew for the sake of raising his children. Despite its shortcomings though, the documentary is visually rich and stirring and a good introduction to gang history and culture.

(One final note: the opening shot of the film is, for lack of a better word, awesome. An upside-down skyline of downtown Los Angeles, seemingly suspended in the air. The camera slowly pans up, hovers through South Central and then settles on a long shot of a hazy horizon. It's dizzying, disorienting and awesome. Definitely a submission into any Best Opening Shot category).

Are you waving the flag at me?

***** Pickup on South Street (1953)

Now this is noir. Moral ambiguity, not-so-subtle sexual overtones, and a prevailing cynicism shared among fraught characters struggling to make ends meet in a bleak world. If you're new to the genre, Double Indemnity is where to start but you should definitely pick up Pickup on South Street (corny pun, I know, but I couldn't resist) because it's a real gem that belongs in any canon of great film noir.

I didn't quite know what to expect of this film. I read a little about Sam Fuller beforehand and decided to watch this film because it came highly recommended by a friend. After the first four minutes I knew I was watching something special - no dialogue is spoken, but each shot is so perfectly constructed in the opening scene that it sets the plot in motion regardless. "Don't talk about it," Sam Fuller once said in an interview. "Show it. Two words." Strong words of advice, and especially true because film is a visual medium. Everything you need to know about screen left, screen right, eyeline matching, closeups, wide angles and panning can be discovered in the opening scene.



Set during the peak of the Red Scare, the story centers on Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark), a lowly pickpocket who unwittingly steals a piece of film that is vital to both federal and Communist agents. Though he's harassed by local authorities to turn the film over (and in doing so, turn himself over to a life sentence in prison), he remains unfazed and coolly thumbs his nose at his persecutors. When one agent challenges McCoy's sense of loyalty and patriotism, McCoy snarls back, "Are you waving the flag at me?" Even before I watched Fuller's interview I was startled by the gutsy line, given its context.



It takes some major cojones to make a movie in the 1950s about a thief who's largely indifferent to his country's fervid struggle against the evils of Communism. The only sympathetic (pathetic is more like it) character in the film is an informant named Moe (Thelma Ritter) who tries to sell enough handmade ties and police information so she can buy a tombstone and plot of land for her grave. Morbid, yes, but it's completely distinctive of the tone of hopelessness and despair that is prevalent in film noir. The scene where she laments about her lonesome and wearied life is especially touching and reminiscent of the time in Hollywood when great character actors lit up the screen.

There are other treasures in Sam Fuller's filmography that I've yet to discover and Pickup on South Street is definitely a classic. A must see for anyone who loves noir.

Kafkaesque fun for kids!

*** Coraline (2009)

Not really sure who the targeted audience was for this movie. Kiddie goths?

Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the film. It's a visual feast and will probably be go down as one of the hallmarks in stop motion animation. Those who have seen The Nightmare Before Christmas, director Henry Selick's first feature, will probably recognize similar motifs and designs in Coraline. There are some truly fantastic sequences that inspire awe, wonder and horror (i.e. the scene where Coraline's father unveils a garden made in his daughter's image).

Whether this is a film for kids is up for debate. Even though it's rated PG, it's advisable that you don't take anyone under the age of ten (or nine - kids are so savvy these days and it seems like they're reaching that point at a younger age) unless you want them forever agitated by the sight of buttons. The visuals aren't the only unsettling aspect of the film; the story is just as off-putting as the images of deformed human shapes that permeate the screen. Coraline, the titular character, is a cheeky young girl who discovers another world through a hidden door in her house. The Other World is a mirror of her own, except everyone there is perfect (albeit creepingly so) as opposed to the dreary humdrum of characters that exist in her real world.

Sounds familiar? If you're thinking Lewis Carroll, you'd be right - if Lewis Carroll was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe to write Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In Coraline, deranged smiles are sewn onto faces along with black buttons that feign as eyes, hands are transfigured into arachnid claws (a nod to Edward Scissorhands) and ghost children with no souls or eyes are trapped behind a mirror forever. Again, be advised to watch this film without highly impressionable people if you want to admire vividly nightmarish imagery and avoid screaming/crying/wailing distractions.



Overall, it's a well-made film and definitely recommended for anyone who's a fan of arthouse animation.

When it comes to murder, location is every bit the culprit...

***** Memories of Murder (2003)

Filming on location can be a tricky thing. Getting permits, capturing the right lighting, trying to effectively manage an entire film crew plus equipment...it's a headache, and a major reason why some filmmakers prefer to shoot inside a studio. Fortunately for us, the makers of Memories of Murder opted for the former and, as a result, the film bears some of the most strikingly authentic and original visuals in a police thriller.

Dickensian conditions, for once, aren't watered down for squeamish viewers. The look of the film is refreshingly filthy - a police station cluttered with paperwork and bedraggled suspects, restaurants filled with smoke and static noise from an old TV, a squalid flat infested with flies, train tracks battered down with mud and rain. These settings may seem familiar to you, being somewhat typical of the genre they belong to, but when was the last time you felt the characters were truly inhabiting the world portrayed onscreen?

The story takes place in Korea, 1986. A rural village is terrorized by a local serial killer whose victims are single, young and attractive women. The police round up the usual suspects, but they have no luck and no leads probably because...well, because they're stupid. And incompetent, arrogant, dishonest and abusive. I've never been more enthralled by a movie where the cops are so cheerfully ignorant and dimwitted. At one point during the film, a detective consults a shaman to help him with the case. Her advice? "Move the main gate of the police station 10 km southwest." How this has any bearing on the case I'm not exactly sure, but the detective is convinced that it does.

As I mentioned before, the characters act like they belong to the time and setting of the film. Furthermore, they have limitations - no Sherlock Holmes-like intellect, no state-of-the-art forensic science to help them (in a hilariously random moment, a tractor runs over a footprint in a crime scene). Compare this movie with an episode of CSI and you see just how often procedural dramas these days rely on plot devices rather than delve into the nitty gritty grind of real police work. Memories of Murder is fascinating to watch because the detectives work with what little they're given and aren't always led methodically to the right answers (another film that comes to mind: Kurosawa's High and Low). They stumble onto clues, yes, but more often time than not those clues lead to nowhere and end up making the case more frustrating and confusing.



If you're sitting at home one evening, debating whether to watch this movie or The Mentalist...please, turn your gaze from Simon Baker's handsome mug and watch Memories of Murder. You won't be disappointed.

Done shook up my sleep

** Ali (2001)

Ali plays like one long (very long), gorgeously-shot music video. Beautiful to look at, dynamic soundtrack, but never a point when you're truly engaged. Given the subject matter, it seems impossible to think that a movie about Muhammad Ali - arguably the most electrifying athlete and sports personality ever - could be boring. Yet that's the one word that pretty much sums up this biopic. When Ali (Will Smith) defeats George Foreman at the end of the film (sorry for the "spoiler") and raises his arms in triumph in front of thousands of Zairians chanting his name, the scene should have scored a 10 on the "chill-factor" scale. Yet it ends up feeling flat (flat!) and all the expectations of greatness anticipating this film ends with disappointment.

The movie chronicles ten years of Ali's professional career - from his first fight with Sonny Liston to the aforementioned "Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. In between the boxing scenes are well-documented accounts from Ali's personal life: his involvement with Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, his refusal to be drafted and subsequent banishment from boxing, his friendship with Howard Cossell and his numerous affairs with women and failed marriages. There are also scenes from famous moments in history (i.e. the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.) that seemingly have no relation to Ali whatsoever other than the fact that they portray the time of social upheaval during which Ali ascended to fame. In the end, you really don't know what to make of this movie: is it supposed to be historical fiction a la Oliver Stone, an inspirational sports flick like Rocky, or an uncompromising look at a complex athlete's life (Raging Bull)? The movie tries be all three and ends up being too sprawling and scattered.

There are moments, glimpses, of sublimity but they never really take off. Although the performances are outstanding, there's no emotional attachment to any of the characters because the scenes play like dramatic reenactments from real life, rather than real life unfolding onscreen. The opening sequence shows so much promise, until you realize that the rest of the movie carries on pretty much the same way:



Great music, great shots - cut to a scene with some dramatic dialogue - cue in great music, cut to great shots. Yep, that's Ali, in only so many words.

Coffee is for closers

***** Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

I have no idea how this movie got made. No bankable stars (except for Pacino), no female parts (which equals no sex), no action, no feel-good comedy. Really? An all male cast who share the screen just to...talk? I'm guessing Jerry Tokofsky, the producer of the film, probably had this running conversation with every studio exec at the time when he was making the pitch:

Tokofsky: Hey, I got this great project in development! It's called Glengarry Glen Ross. We already got Al Pacino to commit.
Studio exec: Great! What's it about?
T: It's about these salesmen who try to sell land.
(awkward pause)
SE: Uhm, ok...
T: Oh, and the script's by David Mamet!
SE: Mamet? I loved House of Games! So it's like a mystery/thriller, then? With a crazy plot twist?
T: No, not exactly...
SE: Then what is it?
T: It's about, uh...guys who try to sell land.
(Long awkward pause)
T: Did I mention we got Pacino to commit?

To no one's surprise, no major studio wanted to finance this film. The funding came from multiple small cable and video companies, a German television station, an Australian movie theater chain, several banks, and New Line Cinema. All the actors took pay cuts and despite the moderate budget, the film flopped at the box office.

We're probably not going to see another movie like this being made in the near future. And it's a shame, really, because everything that is fundamental to movies (or, I should say, good movies) is found in Glengarry Glen Ross. Great acting. Superb writing. You'll be hard pressed to find a movie with a cast and script half as good as GGR's. Despite the thin plot (there's a burglary in the second act and not much else) and real estate jargon (the word leads is probably said 300 times and it's meaning didn't dawn on me til the 150th), the movie captivates the audience's attention because of the aforementioned performances and writing. If you're an aspiring filmmaker, please (please!) pay attention to what makes GGR so great.

Let's start with the cast. Jeez, what a cast. The movie was made circa 1992 - Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey were relatively newcomers, Ed Harris had done a couple big features (The Right Stuff, The Abyss), Al Pacino was Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon was an old Hollywood vet, and Alan Arkin was the immaculate character actor you always recognized in a film you can't quite remember (oh yeah, he was in the Rocketeer! So that's where I've seen him!). Throw in Jonathan Pryce (who proves, yet again, that Brits are better at acting American than real Americans) and you've got what's possibly the greatest acting ensemble ever. Check that list again - there's not a fraud in there. Compare a film like this with Valentine's Day and you see why casting is so crucial to a movie. Big names don't beget good movies; great actors who fit their roles do. Consider, for example, the scene where Shelley Levine (Lemmon), tries to sell a pitch to one of his leads:



Could you imagine anyone else who could play Levine? Sure, you could get another actor, possibly more famous, but you won't get the same result. Notice the way he leaves the man's house after he's failed - a quick raise of the eyebrows, a sad glance back and you sense the quiet desperation that is growing inside him, even though he hasn't spoken a word.

I could go on and on about each individual's performance and how they light up the screen (the opening ten minutes of Baldwin's rant has become iconic, as evidenced by a hilarious parody in an SNL skit) but I'll end with a note on the film's screenplay. The script, adapted from David Mamet's play, is all kinds of wonderful: poetically profane, scathingly witty and filled with awesome one-liners that are impossible to forget ("Put that coffee DOWN!"). Some might complain that real people don't talk the way they do in GGR, but that's the point - when do you ever see people talk the way they do in movies? I hate dialogue when it's treated like a mere contrivance to push the plot forward ("Oh no, we need to diffuse this bomb in thirty seconds or the place is gonna blow!") so it's a real treat to see a film where dialogue is the main attraction. Each line in GGR is worded and timed so precisely that it takes more than one viewing to get the full admiration it deserves:



"Pa-tel?! Ravadahm Pa-tel?!" A great line, from a great movie. Do yourself a favor and watch it.

Insane in the membrane

***** Shutter Island (2010)

Allow me to mull over one of the key scenes in Shutter Island. Teddy Daniels (Leonardo Di Caprio) is having hallucinations. He sees his dead wife (Michelle Williams) in their old apartment building and she's telling him where to find the arsonist who took her life. The apartment is littered with falling ashes, Teddy's wife's flowery dress is stained with blood and music haunts the background as it's being played from an old phonograph. Teddy, stricken with grief, attempts to coddle his wife, only to have her disintegrate into ash (and literally slip through his fingers).

A display of style? Absolutely. But only Scorsese (repeat, only Scorsese) can make a scene like the one mentioned above an integral element of mood and character without making it seem like an exercise in flourish. The word restraint is just not in this man's cinematic vocabulary. He genuinely loves filmmaking and his passion is clearly evident in his latest feature.

The premise is straightfoward enough: two U.S. marshals (DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo) are sent to a mental hospital in order to locate a missing person. The hospital, which resides on a remote island, is an asylum for the nation's most volatile insane criminals (or patients, as Dr. Crawley, played by Ben Kingsley, so emphatically argues they should be called). Conspiracies and paranoia unfold as the marshals investigate deeper into the mystery of the patient's alleged disappearance.

The point, however, is not what the film is about. How it's about is crucial to seeing and understanding the level of mastery Scorsese brings to the material, which can easily be turned to a cheap thriller flick in the hands of another director (at one point during development, the project was supposed to be a directing vehicle for Wolfgang Petersen. No knock on Mr. Petersen, but the man's specialty is in big budget disaster movies. I shudder when I think of how close this movie could have been Outbreak II: Revenge on Shutter Island). Scorsese doesn't settle for the customary peek-a-boos and turn-around-someone's-there crap that guise as "thrills"; instead, he opts for creating an atmosphere that is thoroughly and unflinchingly creepy - Shutter Island is rich with visuals that crawl up and down the spine before settling in uncomfortable recesses of the subconscious.

Some critics might complain that the film lacks the conventional elements of a thriller. We should know by now that Scorsese is not a conventional director, nor can his films be defined by convention and oversimplified classification. Raging Bull is more than a simple boxing movie. Goodfellas is more than just a gangster film. The Age of Innocence is more than a period piece about the Victorian era. Genres don't define the films Scorsese makes and Shutter Island is no exception.