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Published: 11 March 2010
by DAN CARRIER

• Shutter Island. Directed by Martin Scorsese • Certificate: 15

I STILL can’t help but think of Leo DiCaprio as the baby-faced lead in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? As he’s got older, he hasn’t aged. It means in films like this, where he is cast in rather a harsh role of a US Marshall, viewers have to work twice as hard to suspend their belief.

Teaming up with legendary director Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island is about a wind and rain-lashed psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. We learn that Marshall Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) heads there to investigate the disappearance of an inmate – but has other motives of his own to tread the antiseptic corridors of this spooky place. 

Set in the 1950s, it has a Cold War feel to it and, while overblown in patches, there are enough darkened corners to keep your imagination busy.