Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2010: Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island

#39. Shutter Island

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer(s): Laeta Kalogridis
Producers: Brad Fischer, Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer and Scorsese
Distributor: Paramount Pictures

The Gist: Based on the novel “Shutter Island” by Dennis Lehane, the atmospheric psychological thriller set in a 1950s asylum for the criminally insane. It’s 1954, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Shutter Island’s Ashecliffe Hospital. He’d been gunning for an assignment on the island for reasons of his own — but before long he wonders whether he hasn’t been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister.….(more)

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, Patricia Clarkson and Jackie Earle Haley

Why is it on the list?: I doubt that we’ll be chalking this one up as a seminal picture in Marty’s filmography, but before we start bashing the film or over-examining why it got pushed back into early 2010 start calling (DiCaprio worked on Inception) – I say embrace this for what it is: a filmmaker having fun with a genre that he hasn’t really explored before and a pure guilty pleasure for the viewer. Solid cast and original source material may make for an thrilling piece.

Release Date/Status?: Wide release on February 19th.