Great (and not so great) Expectations

Our mental perceptions entirely determine how "good" or "bad" a given piece of creative work is.  I've never been more convinced of this fact than in recently viewing the juxtaposition of two films: Shutter Island and Gothika.  The first, directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, and Michelle Williams, came with lots of critical acclaim and more than a little hype.  I understandably had pretty high expectations of it.  The latter, debuted several years ago and  has been routinely panned ever since.  It's apparently one of Halle Berry's worst movies, and so I was curious to check it out, but sure that it would stink.  Both movies are psychological mysteries / thrillers set in a hospital or prison for the criminally insane.


Shutter Island, much to my chagrin, was a terrible disappointment.  There are numerous problems with it.  First, the film was completely un-balanced.  The lead character (DiCaprio) is a U.S. Marshal investigating a patient (who supposedly drowned her children) escaped from an insane asylum in 1950s New England.  He was formerly in the U.S. Army during World War II (assisting with the liberation of Dachau), and his wife supposedly died tragically in a fire.  To which end, we are constantly presented with flash backs or dreams in which DiCaprio's character relives these tragic and heart-wrenching scenes.  These cut scenes are expertly directed and acted, but they come around far too often in the film.  It's one thing to establish the character's motivation and psychological baggage early in the film with a flash back or two, but seemingly every 5 or 10 minutes Scorsese feels the need to bring us nearly to tears with these horrifically sad events.  This completely throws off the rhythm of the film and doesn't really make the lead character any more (or less) sympathetic.

Guess what, I have a Southie Boston accent in this movie too!

Secondly, while I love a good twist ending in thrillers, the "twist" is both predictable and utterly infuriating in its silliness.  One can guess from the first scene that the "headache pills" that the warden of the asylum gives to DiCaprio are, in fact, some pharmaceutical agent to subdue him.  And then, after nearly 2 hours of various conflicts, cut-scenes and adventures, we are told that all the events were actually a complex ruse, or play acting, to somehow help DiCaprio's character come to grips with his past (he really is an inmate/patient at the asylum).  Now, I know federal and state governments had a lot more money to burn in the 1950s than they do today, but would any psychologist, warden or bureaucrat ever allow the placing of staff, patients and townspeople at risk by pretending that one of their patients is a federal agent, just to possibly avoid having to do a lobotomy on him (an unfortunately common procedure at the time)?  Not only is this premise ridiculous, but it also makes the conflicts and events in the film tantamount to being "all just a dream."  If that's the case, then the themes explored therein are meaningless.  The final line in the movie is somewhat haunting, but by that time I just don't care about DiCaprio's character enough to reflect on it.


Gothika wasn't any better, but then again, I didn't expect it to be.  It was a fun little jaunt of a thriller although there were definitely gaping holes in the plot.  For example, we learn that Halle Berry's character clearly killed her husband with an ax, but evidently that's OK, because at the end of the film she is shown freely walking on the street and back at her old job as a psychiatrist.  I've practiced law for a few years, and I never heard of a prosecutor just dropping murder charges because the defendant helped expose the fact that her victim was a sadistic serial killer and rapist.  Not to mention the fact that there is nothing "gothic" about the movie other than the fact that it is dark (and not just in terms of the subject matter; the lighting is actually not very good).  Gothika is kind of the mirror image of Shutter Island insofar as the protagonist (Berry) was a psychiatrist in a mental hospital only to then be held there as an inmate/patient when it is found that she murdered her husband (of which she has no recollection).  It turns out she did commit the murder after being possessed by the spirit of a girl that her husband previously murdered.  In contrast to the faux "realism" of Shutter Island, this supernatural aspect of the movie actually helps to suspend disbelief and just have some fun with the "ride".  The angry ghost is alternately helpful (letting Berry's character escape from the institution), and pretty un-helpful (beating and frightening her, not to mention forcing her to kill her husband).  The acting isn't very good (from anyone), but taking it at face value makes it not un-watchable.

Unlike anyone watching this in a theater, Halle Berry
was not alone.

In sum, the great difference between the two movies is that Shutter Island presents itself as an almost realistic mystery thriller, which turns out to be anything but realistic (or much of a mystery).  In contrast, with Gothika, you know in the first 15 minutes that something "supernatural" is happening, which grants an explanation (albeit ridiculous) for much of what transpires.  Don't waste your time with either (unless you've got some time to kill).