Shutter Island-- hopefully they'll be open spoilers galore.

Netflix is the best thing to happen to a lazy and cheap Saturday. Me and hubby had an identity crisis day and watched Salt, From Paris With Love and Shutter Island while drinking Killian’s Red. Since Shutter Island was the last of the movie we watched, perhaps the beer had fogged our minds. Or one of our minds. Most likely my husband,s. We often have different interpretations of movies and when we do, he’s wrong. I say he’s wrong because he doesn’t agree with me. For some reason, hubby doesn’t like this method of evaluating our different interpretations. So I’ve come to ask you guys.

That should be enough blather for rollover space.

If a movie is set in an insane asylum-- especially one for the criminally insane-- one of three things is gonna happen:

  1. The doctors are taking advantage of the patience in some horrible or despicable way.

  2. The hero is really a patient.

  3. The patients have taken over the asylum.

My husband insists that number one is at play in the movie while I am sure it’s number two. For one thing, Daniels was sick before he got off the ferry. His loyal partner not only wouldn’t but couldn’t all of a sudden present himself as a doctor to the US Marshals once he gets off the island.

Watching Salt and From Paris before Shutter Island put hubby in the mindset that it is perfectly reasonable to believe that there was a secret CIA or whatever plan to brainwash people to do dirty deeds while the explanation of Andrew being riddled with guilt much more far fetched.
Also, no matter which criminal insane asylum scenario you pick, the very, very ending doesn’t make much sense. Why’d he go willingly to get his brain scrambled?

He went willingly because he felt guilty over the death of his family. He ignored his wife’s crazy signs, which lead to her killing his children. And then he killed her.

“Would you rather die a hero or live as a monster?” If he didn’t get his brain scrambled he’d remember the incident and it’d haunt him.

Thank you, that’s exactly what I thought. Hubby just now asked, “Didn’t Chuck say that?” If he thought Chuck said that line, I could see how he came to his conclusion.

No, I’m 100% positive Leo said the line.

First time I saw the movie, I felt the payoff didn’t really fit in with what had occurred earlier, and was a bit of a cop out.

I ended up watching the movie again, and found it actually worked better knowing the pay off in advance. There are lots of clues that I missed the first time