Shutter Island SPOILER ALERT!

[Michael]

There's bound to be spoilers in a thread on a film, so I'd suggest if you haven't seen it yet, then skip this.

Shutter Island's supporting cast of Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, and Max Von Sydow was enough for me to watch and it turned out to be worthy of the Conspiracy Therapist second highest rating of 4½ stars. Some of the best scenes in the film are simply expository vignettes on declassified CIA mind control programs involving drugs and ex-Nazi's with an added bonus of the infamous icepick lobotomy thrown in for good measure. Can't let the psychiatrists get off scot-free. Scorsese did have the balls to allow DiCaprio's character to ask a very pointed question to its American audience at the end of the film, one that has long since been answered, but perhaps Scorsese thinks will be reconsidered.

The most interesting thing about the movie is not it's Magus-esque (recently applauded here) 'Which-level-of-reality-is-mind-warping-me-now?' plot, but comparing Shutter Island to the Robert DeNiro directed The Good Shepherd (2006), which covers some of the same ground regarding how deeply the CIA has penetrated our society. DeNiro looks even better now.

[Walter Joyce]

Don't you think its a bit ironic that you are pointing out the CIA conspiraciesas a highlight for you in the movie when they were shown to be the ravings of a mad man in the movie?

[Finny]

Don't you think its a bit ironic that you are pointing out the CIA conspiraciesas a highlight for you in the movie when they were shown to be the ravings of a mad man in the movie?

hehehe

i thought it was a rubbish film - but should've expected no less from Scorsese

[Michael]

Don't you think its a bit ironic that you are pointing out the CIA conspiraciesas a highlight for you in the movie when they were shown to be the ravings of a mad man in the movie?

Good point , but of course I reviewed the film as the Conspiracy Therapist, and nowhere is that more appropriate than in a film about the connection between CIA mind control projects and the psychiatrists who carried out the research on witting and thousands of unwitting participants, three of whom the CIA admitted died as a result. Anyway, Scorsese played the dialog this way so that it would be dismissible, I suppose to censors, critics, or orthodoxy-enforcers everywhere. DeNiro showed a lot more balls and skill in The Good Shepherd without relying on tricks or making himself vulnerable. Some of the most important moments in that film flash by in a second or two with minimal dialog, but they're accurate and there for all to see.

DiCaprio's character's final statement in the film was (perhaps not exactly) "Is it better to die a good man or be turned into a monster, controlled by others?" I think that's a question for Americans about their government, the 1947 National Security Act that created the CIA, etc.