Martin Scorsese, often cited as our greatest living director, is having something of a late-career crisis.  He stormed onto the New Hollywood scene in the late 60s equipped with a singular vision, an intimate knowledge of crippling guilt and human nuance and the god-given talent to turn it all into truth-bearing films on par with any of the 20th century’s greatest works of art.

“Who’s That Knocking at My Door,” “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver” helped create a new paradigm in American cinema, shattering a whole host of filmmaking conventions and placing Scorsese at the helm of a new and exciting era in motion pictures.

Then, in 2002, something happened.  That was the year that Scorsese teamed up with Leonardo DiCaprio to make the epic and hugely expensive “Gangs of New York.”  The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, but left a number of critics cold.  It is often thought that “Gangs” marked a turning point in the director’s career.  Instead of being described as emotionally engaged, gritty, personal and revealing of the human condition, his films began to be criticized as emotionally detached, self-indulgent, even gaudy.

I don’t count myself among the naysayers of the Scorsese/DiCaprio tandem as I’ve quite enjoyed their work together, but that a change in the director’s style and sensibilities occurred is undeniable.  “Gangs of New York,” “The Departed” and “The Aviator” are Scorsese films through and through, but have a slightly more commercial tinge to them, understandably.  But what is so interesting about this new era of Scorsese films is that although Marty has flirted with genre in the past, e.g., 1991′s “Cape Fear,” the more commercial he goes the further away from traditional commercial cinema he gets.  This is no more apparent than in “Shutter Island.”

A far cry from the low-budget, art house flicks of his past, “Shutter Island” has more in common with Hitchcock’s pulpy blend of red-herrings, MacGuffins, deceptive camera movements and audience manipulation.  With complete financial security and freedom to create basically anything he wants, it appears Scorsese has taken a cue from Quentin Tarantino and decided to try his hand at elevating the schlock of genre films to the level of legitimate commercial cinema.

This is my first impression of the film:  a lot of fun but terribly predictable, overlong, self-indulgent, campy, stiffly acted (with the exception of DiCaprio’s surprisingly nuanced and weighty performance) and painfully clichéd.  A serious misstep for the old pro.

This is my current impression of the film:  shot beautifully by cinematographer, Robert Richardson, who coincidentally also shot Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” films and “Inglourious Basterds,” Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” is perhaps a little more sophisticated than I initially gave it credit for. Yes, the film’s “twist” is hardly a twist at all since the entire plot was given away in the trailer, but considering Scorsese’s incomparable historical knowledge of film and unmatched talents, it’s hard to believe this amateurish and clichéd predictability wasn’t intentional.  “Shutter Island’s” predictable twist is akin to Hitchcock’s early give-away in his brilliant “Vertigo.”  The point isn’t to fool the audience and then shock them; the point is to use the audience’s knowledge to create suspense, which Marty does with masterful precision.  And my initial adverse reaction to the acting neglected to take in to account the actual roles these characters are playing throughout the film.  (****Spoiler Alert****)  If you accept the film’s general premise that DiCaprio’s character is, in fact, a patient of the institution and that everyone in the facility is playing along in his fantasy, then of course Mark Ruffalo’s psychiatrist character isn’t going to act like a Federal Marshall and of course the guards are going to be a little on edge and not ring entirely true.  I think the entire thing was intentionally setup of to be enjoyed through multiple viewings, which is another reason the twist wasn’t meant to be a twist in the traditional sense.

If “Inglourious Basterds” was Tarantino’s love letter to cinema, “Shutter Island” is Martin Scorsese’s.  It’s packed with all the classic elements of the noir, suspense and procedural pictures of Scorsese’s youth.  Even the film’s climax recalls the famous bell tower scene in “Vertigo.”  Some have complained about the cheesy green-screen shots of the sea in the first act on the boat.  But in reality, all of those scenes were shot on location on a real boat.  The staged feel of it was intentional, which further suggests that Scorsese is in complete control of every detail of the production.  The effect is an ostensibly derivative suspense picture that ultimately manages to transcend both its influences and its genre to reveal a nuanced and thoughtful entry into Scorsese’s impressive filmography.  I should have known better than second-guess our greatest living director.