Shutter Island

Dennis Lehane must have been delighted with the film version of his novel Mystic River and, although I haven't read the original book, I imagine he will have been equally gratified by the adaptation of Shutter Island directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

The film benefits from a combination of an excellent plot, strong characterisation and atmospheric visuals. We are introduced to Leonardo DiCaprio as the detective setting out by boat, together with his partner, to a small but forbidding island which is home to a hospital for the criminally insane. They are investigating the disappearance – apparently from a locked room! – of a woman who murdered her three children.

The chief psychiatrist is played by Ben Kingsley and he seems to be a particularly menacing character, as do other doctors and the tough warden who is in charge of security. What exactly is the secret of Shutter Island? Is it possible that dirty work is going on, and that the psychiatrists are seeking to conduct mind control experiments on their patients? It is the sort of place that is tailor-made for conspiracy theories.

The story has an excellent twist ending, one of the best since The Usual Suspects. Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley both give impressive performances and there are plenty of striking images and memorable scenes. The film left me wanting to read the book, which speaks for itself. Recommended viewing.

Mystic River

I haven’t read Dennis Lehane’s novel, on which it was based, but I’ve just watched Clint Eastwood’s movie, Mystic River. The film garnered several Academy Award nominations, and two Oscars, and I’m not surprised. It is very involving.

Three small boys are playing in a Boston street, years ago, when a pair of paedophiles abduct one of them. The lad escapes, eventually, but is permanently affected. The rest of the story is set in the present day, when the three boys have grown up. But that past event continues to haunt them.

One of the boys (Sean Penn) is an apparently reformed villain, whose beloved daughter goes missing. When she is found murdered, the case is investigated by the father’s childhood chum (Kevin Bacon) while sympathy is offered by the man who was abducted in his youth (Tim Robbins.) A series of misunderstandings, rooted in that abduction, lead to terrible consequences.

The performances of Penn, Robbins and Bacon are uniformly excellent. I did not know that there really is a Mystic River – it turns out to be the backdrop for a grim execution. This is a restrained piece of film-making, but all the more powerful for that. I was impressed.

Gone Baby Gone

Dennis Lehane is a very well regarded thriller writer, but I’ve never read a Lehane novel to the end, though I did start one of his early books about private eyes Kenzie and Genarro once and ran out of either time or enthusiasm. Clearly, I need to give him another try, since he is the author of the best-seller on which the movie Gone Baby Gone is based, and the more I watched, the more this film grew on me.

Kenzie and Genarro are played respectively by Casey Affleck (whose brother Ben is the director) and an intelligent, appealing actress I haven’t heard of previously, called Michelle Monaghan. Two first rate performances here. The pair are called in by the aunt of young girl who has been abducted from her feckless mother.

The police team hunting the girl is headed by Morgan Freeman, doing his usual impressive job as Captain Jack Doyle, whose own child was murdered some time back. Kenzie is deeply familiar with blue-collar Boston, and is persuaded (though Genarro is dubious) that his knowledge of the tough area where the girl lived, and its people, may help to solve the case.

But things go pear-shaped. The girl’s mother has been messing about with drug dealers, and eventually a plan to recover the girl falls apart, and it seems she has drowned in a water-filled quarry. But Kenzie can’t let the case go, and eventually his enquiries lead him to the truth. This is the point at which the film really takes off, posing a moral dilemma which divides Kenzie from Genarro, and threatens to destroy their relationship. Very thought-provoking. I believe I would have made the same choice that Kenzie did - but with many qualms.