Shutter Island (2010)
This podcast episode delves into the intricacies of the film "Shutter Island," highlighting the chilling premise of a mental institution that employs dubious methods to manipulate its patients. We examine the unsettling notion that individuals may be transformed into compliant government agents through sinister practices. Throughout our discussion, we explore the film's thematic depth, particularly the interplay between conspiracy theories and psychological manipulation, which resonates profoundly with contemporary societal concerns. Our analysis is complemented by a critical evaluation of the film's narrative structure and character development, particularly focusing on the performances of the stellar cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio. Ultimately, we conclude with our ratings, reflecting on the film's merits and its provocative implications within the broader context of cinematic storytelling.
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Transcript
100%.
Speaker A:There's some corrupt facility out there that's lobotomizing people to turn them into obedient government agents that can be unleashed on the public at any given time.
Speaker A:Dude, of course this was going on.
Speaker A:Inconvenient excuse to do it.
Speaker B:Love you.
Speaker B:Welcome to the what's Every podcast.
Speaker B:We fashion ourselves cinematic judge and Jerry.
Speaker B:My is JJ Crutter.
Speaker B:I'm here with my co host Alec Burgess.
Speaker A:Let's get it.
Speaker B:We appreciate you tuning in.
Speaker B:Go ahead, hit that Follow subscribe like bell notification buttons help us keep the podcast rolling.
Speaker B:Share it out, tell a family member about us, tell a friend about us.
Speaker B:Don't tell anybody related to this movie about us.
Speaker B:Though normally I tell you to not.
Speaker B:I'm out.
Speaker B:I don't want anything to do with anybody.
Speaker B:Probably this whole month we can just say no thanks.
Speaker B:Just family and friends at this point.
Speaker B:So that might change this opening for.
Speaker B:For the.
Speaker B:For the rest of March.
Speaker B:And speaking of March, we're in March.
Speaker B:What a.
Speaker B:Why it's my birthday month.
Speaker A:Happy birthday jj.
Speaker A:You lose again.
Speaker B:I know dude.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:One more month, dude.
Speaker B:And I know I'm gonna lose April too.
Speaker B:One more.
Speaker B:I already know one more month that I am dicked.
Speaker B:So yeah, keep an eye out for that fun stuff.
Speaker B:But with the start of March, we have a new category and with that new category is.
Speaker B:Is thrillers our fate?
Speaker B:I don't know if it was our favorite.
Speaker B:I think it was just thrillers.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think it was thrillers.
Speaker A:There might have been a favorite in there somewhere or a. Yeah, best thrillers, something like that.
Speaker A:I don't remember.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:It's Thriller March.
Speaker B:How about that?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The month of thrillers.
Speaker A:Much better than horror March.
Speaker A:This was great.
Speaker A:I love the fact that it was thriller and there was just that little bit that I needed to go ahead and.
Speaker A:Yeah, to my advantage, just.
Speaker B:Just slide past what you don't want to actually watch.
Speaker B:I was surprised by.
Speaker B:By one.
Speaker B:At least one of your picks though, which I'm sure we'll talk about.
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Speaker B:And let's move on to our movie.
Speaker A:Alec.
Speaker B:It's Shutter island is.
Speaker B: th in: Speaker B:It was written by Lyda Kellogg Gridis and Dennis Lee Hayne.
Speaker B:Screw those guys parents for those names.
Speaker B:And Martin Scorsese is the director of this film.
Speaker A:It's out of left field, by the way.
Speaker B:Yeah, that was a wild ass name.
Speaker B:I was like, jesus.
Speaker B:Really cool.
Speaker B:As long as I don't have to say it on a podcast.
Speaker B:Okay, let me gear up because this cast is in sane.
Speaker B:We have Leonardo DiCaprio, Emily Mortimer, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sit Out, Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earl Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Cotes, Robin Bartlett, Christopher Denham, and Nelly Sayuda.
Speaker B:You Sayudo.
Speaker B:Oh, and might as well say Joseph Sakura because he's actually pretty famous now with his TV show On Stars.
Speaker B:But with that.
Speaker B:This movie is about two U.S. marshals who are sent to a mental institution on an inhospitable island in order to investigate the disappearance of a patient.
Speaker B:All right, before I give a.
Speaker B:A not so popular opinion, Alec, tell me why you picked this movie.
Speaker A:Oh, there really is no other reason than the conspiracy that surrounds it.
Speaker A:This is 100% feeds my conspiracy theory brain.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's it.
Speaker A:That's all there was to it.
Speaker B:I love it.
Speaker A:When you add in the thriller twist.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker A:It's really hard knowing that or, you know, thinking of this as a Martin Scorsese movie because he adds the.
Speaker A:He adds the gangster marshals in there.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:You can.
Speaker A:You can take Scorsese out of the gangster movie.
Speaker A:You cannot take the gangster movie out of Scorsese.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's gonna happen, but it's.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:So the twist is in its own way, like, very still wildly left open in interpretation.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You can choose essentially which reality or truth you want to believe.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It still gives you an ending.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Which I like when it comes to a movie kind of like this.
Speaker A:But there leaves enough of an interpretation that you can choose to believe it completely.
Speaker A:You can choose not to believe it at all, or you can believe to choose parts of it.
Speaker A:And so that all fed into my, you know, wild conspiracy theory brain, where, yeah, 100.
Speaker A:There's some corrupt facility out there that's lobotomizing people to turn them into obedient government agents that can be unleashed on the public at any given time.
Speaker A:Dude, of course this was going on.
Speaker A:Inconvenient excuse to do it.
Speaker A:Love you.
Speaker B:Cracks my.
Speaker A:There was no way that wasn't gonna happen.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then freaking.
Speaker A:I always love the fact that Buffalo Bill is now a prison warden.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Dude, did his time, paid his debt to society, then decided to just turn around and continue to pay his debt to society on the other side of the bars.
Speaker A:That always gets.
Speaker A:Gotta love that.
Speaker A:Oh yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:But I am interested to hear about your controversial take.
Speaker B:Okay, so this is one of those movies that like people praise the out of this movie.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And let me preface what I'm about to say with this is some of the most phenomenal acting.
Speaker B:It's typical Martin Scorsese film in that the.
Speaker B:If there's anybody that does a.
Speaker B:What do they call the.
Speaker B:The big cast.
Speaker B:Like the All Star.
Speaker B:Yeah, Like I can't.
Speaker B:There's a word that they use and I can't remember.
Speaker B:But when you get this many stars and phenomenal actors like A listers and even high level B listers and even the best C listers that are out there in this.
Speaker B:This group of actors like Martin Scorsese does it better than probably most, if not anyone else.
Speaker B:I think there's a couple you could argue do and especially now have started to get really good at it too.
Speaker B:But he started it and he's the best at it, I think.
Speaker B:Now I say all that to say there is nothing wrong with the.
Speaker B:This from a film perspective and a movie perspective, but I struggle sometimes.
Speaker B:And the twist is.
Speaker B:Is bar non phenomenal.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But I also go, no, they're not sending some for two things.
Speaker B:One, they're not sending some team of agents, marshals for one missing patient.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I don't care how weird and secretive.
Speaker B:And one missing patient does not equate to this.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:That's my first issue.
Speaker B:I'm like, wow.
Speaker B:So the problem with that is, is that triggered me immediately to go, this is.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Then that led me to my second problem at the end of the movie when I was confirmed that.
Speaker B:And I didn't figure out like this is one that I wasn't like, he's a patient.
Speaker B:They're trying.
Speaker B:I didn't figure that out because in my head I'm like, nope, they are not gonna stage this giant ass production at a, at a mental institute.
Speaker A:Everybody's in on it.
Speaker B:Yeah, everybody's in on it.
Speaker B:This mental institution for one guy to try to solve, it's not.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:And so it complete.
Speaker B:And this is a me thing again.
Speaker B:And I'm not degrading the film.
Speaker B:I'm not sitting there saying it's a shitty film.
Speaker B:What I'm saying is, is my brain immediately went to.
Speaker B:It's all.
Speaker B:And neither of these, even if you can't figure out which one's right.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Neither of these works for me.
Speaker B:And so I've always had that problem with this movie and it's such a double edged sword for me because I love to watch it from a technical filming, acting, even like dialogue, perspective.
Speaker B:Love it.
Speaker B:But from a sense of like this could happen and it makes sense to me.
Speaker B:Not a goddamn chance.
Speaker B:And so it's really, it really messes with me watching.
Speaker B:Every time I watch this movie, I come away so frustrated because I'm like, God, you're so annoying.
Speaker B:I'm so annoying because I can't just say what a great story and good movie.
Speaker B:And then I'm like you, Martin Scorsese for putting me in this position where I'm like, come on, come up with.
Speaker B:Even if you just took it off of a goddamn island, Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Don't have it be on an island.
Speaker B:Because then that takes my ability to say, well, one person, you're so isolated out there, why would they send a bunch of marshals to.
Speaker B:For one, one woman.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And they try to explain it and it just doesn't work for me.
Speaker B:And then the second piece is if they're not on an island, it's easier for me to be okay with them bringing in people that are not part of this hospital to be part of this treatment, of letting him work through this in this way.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Or they send him to somewhere because I would have been more okay if you take the, the, the secret or the investigation out of the island.
Speaker B:So even if you send him, let's say the institution is on an island but we're sending him, he's like a cop going to a different institution or he's a cop going to a different place to do this investigation and they've set it up and they're going to try this immersion therapy type thing.
Speaker B:But having it be on the island in which he's being treated pulls me so far out of the reality of this thing.
Speaker B:And again, it's probably just me.
Speaker B:God damn it.
Speaker B:It drives me nuts.
Speaker B:It really drives me nuts.
Speaker A:I don't think it's just you because I, I didn't have that or I don't have what you have, but I have maybe something that's adjacent to it, which is the.
Speaker A:It.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's tricky to put words to, but it seems like they change what they're doing with their follow through or they change this immersion therapy, let's put it that way, that's the best way to do it because you have moments at the beginning, Right.
Speaker A:As soon as they get off the ferry, you have really insecure, trigger happy looking guards.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And you get a view of Leo seeing this and kind of registering that within his, you know, mind from being a Marshall.
Speaker A:And then you have the sequence where they get into the facility and freaking Mark Ruffalo did not work his holster.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And they.
Speaker A:They specifically point that out.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And you can again see the gears turning.
Speaker A:And so it sets you up for this big reveal that he's a patient and this is all theater.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:The problem that gets me is when I'd say about a little after halfway through the movie, after they separate the two.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And then they start telling him, you didn't come here with a partner, you came here alone.
Speaker A:And they do this gaslighting that it's after he, you know, runs into cave dwelling Rachel Salando, that now all of a sudden you get this switch and that's what they like break apart this immersion therapy all of a sudden.
Speaker A:And they change it to be this gaslighting.
Speaker A:And I'm pretty sure it's done for the audience's benefit to get us back on the side of.
Speaker A:Oh, dude, dude, they're.
Speaker A:They're messed up.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:But the problem is that then when you circle back to this is an elaborate role play, it doesn't make sense to me anymore.
Speaker A:Because if it was, why would you, one, let him go off on his own, then two, deliberately change the circumstances with as if, as they have put it, a violent, volatile, extremely dangerous patient because of his background in his training, you're intentionally putting pressure or these pressure points to really.
Speaker A:On a teen time bomb of a patient.
Speaker A:And that doesn't make sense when you have the, when the stakes are in play.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:If you're.
Speaker A:If you're going through this elaborate role play, stick to it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Why are you cutting it off in the middle?
Speaker A:And now you're essentially telling them, no, dude, you came here by yourself.
Speaker A:You know, what are you doing this type of thing for?
Speaker A:And then the whole, you know, we.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, we are medicating you through the cigarettes and the pills and everything like that.
Speaker A:That's the reason why you're having all these delusions.
Speaker A:Grandeur is because you're off your mets.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wait a minute.
Speaker A:Like there's some nefarious disconnect there.
Speaker A:And so that is what pulls me out in the way of like, okay, well, wait a second.
Speaker A:If now, now you're telling this compelling story, but you're breaking all your rules and Martin Scorsese typically doesn't do that.
Speaker A:He typically stays in the rules in the movies that he does.
Speaker A:Like, hey, this is, this is the world that I believe.
Speaker A:These are rules within the world.
Speaker A:We're going to stay within it, tell a great story, do all that.
Speaker A:And this is one where it just, it breaks apart and you have all these.
Speaker A:It's just the changing almost of this type of thing where even if they aren't lobotomizing people and sending them out to do their dirty work, like, dude, this facility needs to be shut down anyway because this immersion therapy, I see where they're, what they're trying to build with it.
Speaker A:But no, you gotta stick with it if you're gonna go that route.
Speaker A:You don't get to change your mind halfway through because you're just thinking, oh, hey, this will be fun with our extremely violent patient.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:And I think another thing that I always think about is the one, one piece of genius from Scorsese was to set it in the time frame that he did.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Because that's the other piece that, like, if you were to try to do a modern version of this, you couldn't do it.
Speaker B:There's too many checks and balances.
Speaker B:There's too much oversight for especially the mental health community and things like that.
Speaker B:Like, you could never get away with putting a patient through this because it's not gonna work.
Speaker B:Like, certain level of immersion therapy does work, but on that level, like, there's no fucking way.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And so it's, it's wild to me.
Speaker B:So I, I do applaud him for picking that timeframe because post World War II.
Speaker A:Brilliant.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Because that would have made it even worse, like if they try to do it in a modern.
Speaker B:So I don't.
Speaker B:And it's this really double, like I said, double edged sword for me because I have issues with the movie from a personal perspective.
Speaker B:But I want to praise it because I'll tell you what, I'm not.
Speaker B:I also, on a personal level, not like a huge Leonardo DiCaprio fan.
Speaker A:Like, he's.
Speaker A:How dare you?
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker B:Hot take.
Speaker B:I'm getting them all this tonight, this episode.
Speaker B:Now listen, I love him when.
Speaker B:I love him, like when he's good.
Speaker B:Unreal.
Speaker B:Like Django Unchained.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Dude, don't even be started about Leonardo DiCaprio on that movie.
Speaker B:Back in the old.
Speaker B:Back of forever ago.
Speaker B:Like, what's eating Gilbert Grape?
Speaker B:Jesus Christ.
Speaker B:Like, there are so many movies that when he's on and I think we talked about this when we.
Speaker B:When we did the one that.
Speaker B:With Tom Hanks and.
Speaker B:And catch me if you can.
Speaker B:Like, I don't love him in that movie.
Speaker B:However, in this movie, he.
Speaker B:And I think this movie set him up to be as good as he was in what's the dream one.
Speaker B:Why can't I think of the name of this movie Inception?
Speaker B:Because this character as the Marshall and his character from Inception, Very similar.
Speaker B:Feel very similar to me.
Speaker B:And so I'm like, oh, this movie set him up.
Speaker B:Because Inception is probably this in Inception is probably my two favorite performances from Leonardo DiCaprio.
Speaker B:As much as I don't love this movie for reasons I love Leonardo DiCaprio and I love the interaction between Leonardo DiCaprio and what's wrong with me, Mark Ruffalo and Ben.
Speaker B:The old man, the doctor.
Speaker B:God damn it.
Speaker A:Dr. Stanley Tucci.
Speaker B:No, Ben Kingsley.
Speaker A:Ben.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So those interactions.
Speaker B:And Ben Kingsley is one of my favorite underrated actors.
Speaker A:Like, he does a good job in anything he's in.
Speaker B:So good.
Speaker B:Even his dumbass in the Marvel movies, the Trevor Slattery.
Speaker B:Like, he steals the show.
Speaker B:So I love Ben Kingsley.
Speaker B:So anyway, I.
Speaker B:Of all the things that I poo poo on this movie for, because it's a personal issue with me, like, from an acting perspective, it's up there for me.
Speaker B:Like, as far as, like, performances go, there's not a bad performance in this movie from one of the leading or like, secondary parts that actually drive this movie forward.
Speaker B:Like, God damn, it's good.
Speaker B:Like good, good.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think part of that, because I agree with you on that.
Speaker A:But it's an interesting thing because they kept the.
Speaker A:As stacked as this cast is, they kept it small.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's mostly Leo, Mark and Ben.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And very few people have to do anything other than stand in the background, look menacing or look terrifying, look off.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then because again, the only two guards that really talk are your warden, your deputy warden.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And with the warden being Ted Levine, like, you have every single bit of crazy brilliance locked up in that ball of humanity already that it, it's.
Speaker A:It's pretty much just like lobbing softballs with what you're trying to build.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:In this movie.
Speaker A:And so you, you have a huge, well stacked cast, but you keep all your interactions or the majority interactions within your core and you don't have a lot of strain outside of it.
Speaker A:But everybody, even in the background who's just there is doing a phenomenal job of just existing.
Speaker A:And that sets the backdrop in the scene.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker A:I mean, it's the, you know, uncertain guards going through.
Speaker A:It's the patients who are acting or are crazy.
Speaker A:You have the interaction in ward C where both interactions in Ward C where you have this back and forth with Leo and two different patients.
Speaker A:And it's just every single interaction is this high stakes.
Speaker A:You know, something big's on the line and you don't know what it is, but you know, something's big.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:But I will say the.
Speaker A:It's really funny how the lengths that they're willing to go for this theater that they're putting on.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, to the point of hiding clues for him to find and decipher.
Speaker A:Like, if you're just watching it from a purely entertainment, you miss all the facts, all.
Speaker A:Everything that has to go in for this to make sense, including, like, drugging him and dumping him on the ferry to begin with.
Speaker B:It's insane.
Speaker A:Dude, bring the fairy back in and have him play out this role.
Speaker A:But to have, like, his informant.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Who he's talking about is actually a patient in the ward and you.
Speaker A:It just.
Speaker A:Everything that ticks off the.
Speaker A:The amount they have to go through and all these hidden clues that they're laying for him to find and deal with, and it's just leaving a cigarette on the edge of a cliffside well.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker B:This is exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker B:Go ahead.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker B:No, it just.
Speaker A:It's just great because it's the.
Speaker A:It's the stack upon stack of.
Speaker A:Of theater that's going into it.
Speaker A:And you almost have to say, okay, Scorsese is the enough.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, if.
Speaker A:If you really want to do this elaborate role play, you'd almost leave it very sparingly and you'd have Leo's mind fill in the blanks.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Essentially, what you'd want to do, you give the.
Speaker A:The basic plot points, but aside from that, you just let him kind of work through it on his own.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which would take an incredible amount of coordination to begin with, but that would be a thing.
Speaker A:But this is so funny because it's the most elaborate scavenger hunt.
Speaker A:Well, most elaborate wild goose chase, really.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But it's.
Speaker A:I mean, even to the point where this cracked me up or cracks me up.
Speaker A:Subsequent watchings.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:First watching didn't catch or thought it was brilliant, but it cracks me up at the end.
Speaker A:Or watching it again where, you know, the big reveal about the 67th patient.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Is because they deliberately.
Speaker A:We're talking about only having 66 in their meeting.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, they're deliberately dropping this hint and clue that there's one unhidden patient.
Speaker A:But to have the.
Speaker A:You know, again, to have everybody on the conspiracy to bring that about is so funny to me because, you know, somebody at some point's gonna accidentally goof up or let it slip or not be able to carry through.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that would throw off everything.
Speaker A:You'd have to essentially start over in another nine months after he relapses.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think that's the.
Speaker B:Okay, so you just encapsulated way more, way better than I was trying to in my apparently up brain today.
Speaker B:Because I always ask the question, too, at the end of it.
Speaker B:Like, why?
Speaker B:Right, why?
Speaker B:Okay, so let's say you go through the effort of doing exactly what you just talked about because it's a monumental effort.
Speaker B:And you're including patients, you know, people that are already in your care because of mental institutional needs, and you're going to put them in.
Speaker B:That's a dangerous situation because you can't control everything.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You learn that in this movie.
Speaker B:They can't control all of it.
Speaker B:And there's, like, hiccups in it.
Speaker B:Like, you got the two different Rachels, and you got, like, there's all sorts of things that go weird.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And then you have to ask the question of, like, how much of it is staged again.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But then I.
Speaker B:At the end of it, no matter how much I love it and how much I think it's interesting and, like, a cool concept, Like, I go, why?
Speaker B:Like, what does this guy do for you?
Speaker B:Like, what is fixing him and getting him back and treating him differently than any other patient that you have to this extent.
Speaker B:What does it do for you?
Speaker B:Because they don't really talk about, like, other than the fact that the.
Speaker B:The doctor wants to say, I fixed him.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, but that's it.
Speaker B:Like, and to what end?
Speaker B:Like, to what?
Speaker B:What's the risk reward here?
Speaker B:Like, is he gonna save the world?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Is he get.
Speaker B:All you're gonna be able to do is say, I took this guy that had some issues, serious issues, and I got him back on track.
Speaker B:You're not good.
Speaker B:Even if you did, you're not going to release him back to the public, because what happens if he goes backwards?
Speaker B:This is a dangerous human being.
Speaker B:Like, and so I think he's there for life.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:He's not getting out.
Speaker B:It's so, to me, like, it.
Speaker B:It always leads back to.
Speaker B:It's a cool concept, but I don't understand the why.
Speaker B:And so therefore the means by which they're trying to get to the end seems way out of proportion.
Speaker B:And like I said, it's just.
Speaker B:This is conundrum for me because it's so cool, but I'm like you because it wouldn't happen.
Speaker B:And so anyway, it's just weird, like.
Speaker B:But yeah, you epitomized what I was trying to say.
Speaker A:You ready for me to go all crazy?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:Here's what I think.
Speaker A:I think that the original ending of this was the psyop agent, government agent thing.
Speaker A:I don't think it tested well with either test audiences or the studio.
Speaker A:And so I think Martin Scorsese changed it to be he's a patient.
Speaker A:Because this.
Speaker A:This all if.
Speaker A:If you change the ending that we see.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Which is he decides he no longer wants to run the risk of being.
Speaker A:Of having to go through this again, relapsing whatever it may be.
Speaker A:So he goes, and he's essentially willingly lobotomized.
Speaker A:Yeah, Right.
Speaker A:If you take that part out and you change the ending to be the hospital is almost this nefarious entity.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:Because it's really.
Speaker A:I don't know about you, but where the problems.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Start with me are about 25 to 30 minutes till the end of the movie.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And so when they're wrapping everything up, if you change the ending to be this more nefarious, they're essentially turning them into this, you know, crazy kind of compliant agent.
Speaker A:Then it all makes sense.
Speaker A:And now it's more of.
Speaker A:They selected him because he was asking these questions as a marshal.
Speaker A:They put him on a boat with a partner he doesn't know.
Speaker A:First partner who just happens to work for the institution.
Speaker A:They are drugging his cigarettes and they're drugging his pills, giving him this aspirin.
Speaker A:It's not really aspirin.
Speaker A:And they're setting them up as this violent, extremely capable potential, you know, government asset that can be used in the field.
Speaker A:You're Jason Bourne esque type individual, and now you're just in the process of breaking down his identity and transferring it over into what you can use that when you do, you know, your lobotomized surgery.
Speaker A:Now you can ship them back.
Speaker A:So that was.
Speaker A: well with audience census in: Speaker A:Now, I think it would test a whole lot better.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, that's the movie I want.
Speaker B:When I watch it, I'm like, Even
Speaker A:nefarious, you know, dropping in these government agents.
Speaker A:Because now you could open up so many things into McCarthyism and the 60s and the 70s and the Vietnam War and all this good stuff and all these things that happen if you have these planted agents that are.
Speaker A:Because now you have a reason for this theatric role play.
Speaker A:And it would not surprise me if that's what Scorsese wanted to do up.
Speaker A:See, the government found me, the light turned off.
Speaker A:Scorsese wanted to do.
Speaker A:Or if that was kind of the plan to begin with.
Speaker A:Because that to me makes a whole lot more sense, makes this movie better.
Speaker A:And it takes your story that you're building and it makes sense for having this switch in the middle.
Speaker A:That does bug me where it goes from, you know, it's.
Speaker A:It doesn't make any sense to Gaslight, your therapy.
Speaker A:Doesn't make any sense to do it.
Speaker A:To tell him that he came here alone, he doesn't actually have a partner.
Speaker A:That only makes sense if you're breaking them down and trying to convince everybody that he's crazy.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:And so that's where after watch this movie a handful of times, it starts to go down.
Speaker A:Like I. I would be shocked if this was the original ending that Scorsese had planned, but he had to change it from studio pressure or from test audiences not liking it.
Speaker A:That makes more sense to me.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, that's all of a call out and something I didn't even.
Speaker B:I should have thought about it, but I didn't.
Speaker B:And I'll be honest, like, that would make sense to me because that's also Scorsese.
Speaker B:Scorsese doesn't make happy films.
Speaker B:So like the fact that this and this one doesn't necessarily end happily, like it's pretty rough, but at the same time, like, it would have been good ending.
Speaker B: into some Jason Bourne Esque: Speaker A:Imagine that'd be dope veteran U.S. marshal.
Speaker A:Oh, just rude.
Speaker A:Havoc.
Speaker B:But it would be cool as hell.
Speaker A:It would be cool as hell.
Speaker A:But that would have been where if you, you know, change around a little bit and the last scene is him leaving on the ferry.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah,
Speaker A:dude.
Speaker B:Now I want to remake because then
Speaker A:you could just do 30 second montage of world history events that happened in the next 10, 15 years because there's so many of them.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you could do a phone newspaper montage and have like just Leonardo DiCaprio all grainy in the background or assassinations.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, you can imagine.
Speaker A:Could do so much with it.
Speaker A:Dude.
Speaker B:Could you imagine a freaking newspaper clipping of Kennedy?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, dude.
Speaker A:Because now you have this interviewed.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, and he's the guy bringing in.
Speaker B:Oh, he's the dude bringing him in.
Speaker A:Get the out.
Speaker B:That would have been dope as.
Speaker A:So that's where my brain goes.
Speaker A:Watching this movie so many times is looking at what I know about Scorsese films and what he does.
Speaker A:And this as good as it is, when you see Scorsese flash up at the end, you're kind of like, what?
Speaker A:Yeah, because there's enough in him to let you know it's going on, but it doesn't have that the, the Scorsese necessarily touch to it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so every time think about, like, what I would have done provided I didn't have something, you know, coming at me saying like, no, you can't do that is I would have done this, this, and this and have this be a very out in the open.
Speaker A:Like, like you brought up the Kennedy assassination.
Speaker A:Oh, to do with the moon landing.
Speaker A:Something to do with Korea.
Speaker A:Something to do.
Speaker A:You could even have like a news clipping about the celebrated scientist who came up with this revolutionary treatment.
Speaker A:And he's now going worldwide to different nations.
Speaker A:And you could flash on with freaking Chairman Mao and Tiananmen Square and all these different protests around the world and oh my God, communist nations and, you know, the breaking of the Berlin Wall.
Speaker A:And you could just had a 30 second just clip, clip, clip, clip, clip, clip, clip of all these things.
Speaker A:And so you, you give enough to that story is actually happening, but you also leave it open and enough that it's like, okay, well, nobody's going to be able to prove this because anybody who tries to gets turned into one of these agents.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so you have the perfect scheme almost that's going on.
Speaker B:Man.
Speaker B:You just opened up.
Speaker B:That was beautiful.
Speaker B:Seriously, dude.
Speaker B:Could you imagine like they show a clip of like a newspaper with Gorbachev sitting in the back and right behind him is Leo as an old man.
Speaker B:Oh, get the out, Kingsley.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, jeez.
Speaker B:Well, by the time Gorbachev, you probably.
Speaker B:He'd be old.
Speaker A:Old.
Speaker A:Oh, that's true.
Speaker B:But at the same time, like, you could.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, you could have so many.
Speaker A:Oh.
Speaker A:And so that.
Speaker A:That's why I love this movie.
Speaker A:And at the same time is because that's where my conspiracy theory brain goes.
Speaker A:If you're gonna dangle that in front of me, yeah, like, dude, go all the way.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Really go ham with it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because you could.
Speaker A:You could essentially rewrite history in a way.
Speaker A:And this is part of the reason why I really enjoy Tarantino's films is because he does stuff similar to this, where he rewrites history from a different point of view of what could potentially have happened.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so he just tells a great story and he changes stuff.
Speaker A:This is one where I was like, dude, especially with the connections of, you know, the.
Speaker A:After World War II and dispersing of National Socialist scientists to different countries around the world.
Speaker A:Now you have a World War II vet who was part of this liberation of a concentration camp.
Speaker A:And dagout, you have that element added into it.
Speaker A:And so, I mean, they.
Speaker A:They set it up beautifully and to the point where we see Leo speaking German.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's why I made.
Speaker A:That's why I made the Jason Bourne kind of connection, is you have this guy who's prepped.
Speaker A:Prepped to be your undercover mole agent.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:If he knows German, he can learn other languages.
Speaker A:He could learn Russian, he can learn Pakistan, he can learn, you know, Hebrew.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:He can learn all these different languages.
Speaker A:And you could stick.
Speaker A:Drop him anywhere in the world, but especially anywhere in the United States, and he could be your covert operative.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so that's.
Speaker A:That's what I want from this movie.
Speaker A:Every time I watch it.
Speaker A:That's what I want now.
Speaker B:I want to write this movie that way.
Speaker B:Like, that would been so good.
Speaker B:Like this.
Speaker B:That would be on, like, God, if done right, that could be on my, like, top five list.
Speaker A:You're talking about one of the probably greatest movies ever.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, that would.
Speaker A:It's set up in Shutter island, but they just.
Speaker A:Then that's, for me, is it falls flat about 25 to 30 minutes before it ends.
Speaker A:Because they.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:They set their role play, then they set their gaslighting, and then they go back to the role play.
Speaker A:And so that middle section, I'm like, why does it need to be there?
Speaker A:You could still keep the role play all the way through.
Speaker A:Yeah, but if I had my way.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Role play, gaslighting.
Speaker A:Now you see a real world kind of implication of what could happen.
Speaker B:That was a mind blow moment for me, man.
Speaker B:Jesus Christ.
Speaker A:Up here till Thursday.
Speaker B:On that note, I think we should just rake this and.
Speaker A:All right, let's do it.
Speaker B:I. Dude, your movie, you're good.
Speaker A:My movie, I go for.
Speaker A:I'm gonna give it a four.
Speaker A:It is a great movie.
Speaker A:Everything that I talked.
Speaker A:That it detract about.
Speaker A:Does not detract enough, I'll say, because you can still sit down and watch it.
Speaker A:But kind of what you said at the beginning, there are a lot of people who swear this is the greatest movie ever made.
Speaker A:Don't be one of those people.
Speaker A:They're wrong.
Speaker A:It is a great movie.
Speaker A:It is not.
Speaker A:It.
Speaker A:It's not so great that this is the greatest movie you're ever gonna see in your life.
Speaker A:It could have been, in my opinion, but I'm gonna give it a 4.
Speaker A:I do like to sit down and re watch this, you know, a handful of times.
Speaker A:One of those that is.
Speaker A:I have to leave enough space so I forget kind of what's going on and happen so I can rediscover it as it's happening.
Speaker A:But yeah, four for me.
Speaker A:I will watch it again.
Speaker A:I do enjoy this movie.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm gonna give it a four too.
Speaker B:I listen, I Even as.
Speaker B:And it's always been a four for me, even when I was poo pooing at the beginning.
Speaker B:And like I said, the only thing I poo poo is the fact that it feels.
Speaker B:And the more we've talked about it, like, it just feels like it wasn't supposed to be what we got.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And it.
Speaker B:And makes sense to me thinking it from that perspective too, because like I said, I feel like I'm watching almost two different movies because I'm like, it just doesn't make sense why you would go to the effort and then have no reason for the effort other than to say he's cured.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And cured of what?
Speaker B:He's never going to be cured.
Speaker B:So it's like, I just don't get the effort that's put in there to the end that can come from it.
Speaker B:So that's always bothered me.
Speaker B:But it's a really good movie and it's very well acted and the dialogue is impressive as hell.
Speaker B:And because even I, to your credit, like, up until that point that we start to unravel the whole thing, I'm like, what the fuck is going on here?
Speaker B:Like, yeah, because I'm always like, how do you lose somebody in an island and then act like they didn't just jump off the goddamn cliff?
Speaker B:Like, why are we making this a thing?
Speaker B:And then you're like, oh, fuck.
Speaker B:And then I'm like, ah, God damn it, what a waste.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, and I'm with you.
Speaker B:Like, I think this could have been a five plus.
Speaker B:Like, holy balls, five.
Speaker B:Because God damn, that could have been diabolical.
Speaker B:And twisted, even more so than it already is.
Speaker B:So, yeah, really good movie.
Speaker B:Go watch it if you haven't seen it.
Speaker B:Jesus.
Speaker B:See this movie.
Speaker B:But understand that, like, there's some pieces that aren't that don't add up.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And that's where I get frustrated with people that, like you said, Alec, that are like, oh, Shutter island is Martin Scorsese's best.
Speaker B:No, it's really not.
Speaker B:Like it could have been.
Speaker B:And there's parts that are.
Speaker B:But as a whole, as a complete film, it's just not.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And there are things that were missed.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:But for.
Speaker B:I love to watch it while I'm watching it, and then when I'm done, I'm like, God damn it, why'd I watch that again?
Speaker B:Because now I'm just frustrated.
Speaker B:And now I think it might even be worse now that we've actually talked about that diabolical ass.
Speaker B:You were talking about how it should have ended, because that's how it should have ended.
Speaker B:So the.
Speaker B:The YouTube channel, I don't know how it should have ended, needs to do a episode on this one.
Speaker B:Anyway.
Speaker B:Yeah, there it is.
Speaker B:Good movie.
Speaker B:Go check it out.
Speaker B:It's a good way to start off the month of March.
Speaker B:I didn't have a complete Nutter meltdown, which is nice because we've had a rough couple of months this year.
Speaker B:So it was nice to watch a movie that I didn't want to beat my head against the wall for.
Speaker A:Yeah, at this point, you're just mad you loss.
Speaker A:You're not mad that you lost and have to watch the worst movies ever made.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm mad that my just the tip list is still on goddamn Pandora or Patreon.
Speaker B:I don't want to, but I'm not mad about the film that I had to watch for the first time in a very long time.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But anyway, Alec, tell everybody where they can find us when they're not conspiracy theorizing with us.
Speaker A:Oh, that's the best place to find us.
Speaker A:But YouTube is where you can see our smiling faces and our jokes that go back forth and really see the life leave JJ's eye ties whenever he's upset.
Speaker A:Outside of that.
Speaker A:Join us at what's our average reviews on Patreon is completely free to get involved in the voting.
Speaker A:And like I'm gonna keep saying all year long, we've changed the way that we formulate the podcast.
Speaker A:So voting now on the movies means a lot more to us as loser has punishments that come about, which is pretty much movies that the person does not want to watch, being able to be selected by people to make us watch them.
Speaker A:So Patreon's best place to get involved with that.
Speaker A:If you want to get involved a little bit more.
Speaker A:There's behind a small paywall, tons of extra content.
Speaker A:I think we're probably pushing 650 to 700 extra episodes of content.
Speaker A:Everything that from bloopers, outtakes all the way up to full length episodes of movies nobody should watch.
Speaker A:But we did for you.
Speaker A:With that said, special thanks to our current patrons.
Speaker A:Rich and CB guys are amazing for keeping the podcast going and for this year, especially amazing for making JJ hate everything, which I appreciate immensely.
Speaker A:With that, I will kick it back to the colossus of clout, the king of crash.
Speaker A:A J.J. that's right.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:Thank you, Alec.
Speaker B:Yeah, go check us out.
Speaker B:Also go check out w gg get you 10 off with the Code R verdict when you do an order.
Speaker B:It's good stuff there.
Speaker B:We appreciate you tuning in.
Speaker B:That'll help us grow the podcast.
Speaker B:But we'll catch you on the next one.
Speaker A:Hasta la vista, baby.
Speaker B:Cinematic.
