I am very much fond of thriller or mystery-type movies. Give me some movies of this genre and I can spend my whole day with them. So here comes the CineTv writing contest. From the beginning, I am trying to be in the cine tribe with my movie reviews from my end and on top of that here I got the contest, impressive. Isn't it very difficult to find out the most favorite movie? I couldn’t figure out which is the best for me but I have picked one which would be on the top if I start to make a list. It's Shutter Island. I have watched this movie twice and even today I feel that the mystery isn’t solved yet. Something is knocking in my head, something is feeling like I have missed. It's truly a mystery that I still feel hard to solve.
Well,Shutter Island came on the air in 2010 directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Laeta Kalogridis. This one is based on a novel named "Shutter Island" which was written by Dennis Lehane in 2003. I didn’t know about the novel when I first watched the movie. Leonardo Di Caprio is one of my favorite actors so maybe it was he, who attracted me to watch the movie in the beginning. One thing before I start, this post contains spoilers.
Storyline: The movie starts with Edward Daniels (Teddy) and his partner Chuck and they were going to an island named Shutter Island where is the Ashecliffe hospital for the criminally insane patients. They were US marshals going to investigate a missing case of one of the patients there named Rachel Solando. As the movie was progressing I was feeling like something happened to that patient and the authority could be behind that as usual in all movies. The authority wasn’t cooperating with them as per their demand so something fishy is easy to guess. My guess was going on point as Teddy was doing his investigation and finding clues that were leading to some mystery. Finding a note on Solanda's room written, "Law of 4, who is 67" While investigating a patient secretly written "Run" on a paper indicates that something is fishy there.
But the first surprise I got was when I heard that teddy came here on purpose. He wants to find Andrew Laeddis by whom his wife was killed at her apartment due to a fire that broke out. Even he knew that something mysterious experiments are going on this island from a patient of this hospital who was here in the past. I was also surprised by Teddy's motive that he doesn’t want to kill him. As he was in the war so he had seen enough killings so don't want more. That was impressive. The first twist I got was the time when Chuck started to realize that they didn't come by their own will; they were brought here by the authorities for any motive because till now they didn't find any evidence of Solanda's existence.
After a storm, everything had massive damage and Teddy got a chance to enter a restricted ward. He thought he would find Laddie there but he got George who told Teddy about the unusual activities here. He then cleared a mystery that Teddy was bought here and he is in a maze. He needs to choose one between finding Laeddie or solving the mystery. Oh, another thing I almost forgot to share is that ever since Teddy came here he gets the pain of migrants frequently. He also sees his dead wife talking to him and instructing on many things. Their mystery was quite solved when Teddy found Solando in a cave where she shared the experiments they are doing on the lighthouse on the human brain. Even she cleared that Teddy is bought for the same purpose and already they started giving him medicine through aspirin he took for migrant pain and via cigarette.
The main twist or the mystery you can say whatever you want comes at the lighthouse. There Teddy breaks in with a gun and finds Cawley who was waiting for him. He started to unfold twists one after another. Teddy who we were assuming as Edward Daniels is actually Andrew Laddies and he is the 67th patient of Ashecliffe. He has murdered his wife Dolores Chanal. Edward Daniels and Rachel Solando had no existence in the real world; these two names came from his and his wife's name into his delusion. Trust me I didn't believe all these in the first, I thought the authority was trying to make him insane for their experiment. But facts were unfolding in such a way that I got into the dilemma of where I should believe. His partner Chuck was his Dr.Sheehan. The next day he confessed about his state which states that he murdered his wife and he is a patient of here. The warden mentioned that they had gained this state from him nine months ago too and he lost that. Even he warned him that it was his last chance otherwise they will lobotomize him which he(w) doesn’t want to do. They don't want to erase all his memories.
The next day Andrew sitting on the ground calls Sheehan Chuck again which means he lost again. Sheehan nods his head looking at Cawley and they take Andrew away.
This screenshot is taken from the movie
But the most favorite part that haunts me even today is the last quote from Andrew made for Sheehan before leaving.
Which would be worse, to live as a monster or to die as a good man?
It made me feel that Andrew or Teddy whatever we say chooses with his conscience to be lobotomized willingly. Maybe he can't live with the burden of killing his wife instead he may choose to die thinking that he didn’t kill them. That was the most favorite ending till now for me. Surely this movie is very hard to get if someone doesn’t watch it two or three times. Still, now I feel that mystery is left unsolved somewhere or something is missing even today. Who knows how many times I will be watching it again.
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