‘Masterful’ Leonardo DiCaprio crime drama leaving Amazon Prime in 4 days

The clock is ticking on the 1950s thriller.

Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio as two detectives in Shutter Island (Image: Photo Credit: Andrew Cooper SMPS)

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are legendary collaborators. With films spanning historic epics and Westerns to biopics and a comedy, there’s a lot to enjoy. Starting with Gangs of New York in 2002, the director-actor duo have made six movies with each other since.

But you’ll have to be quick to catch one of their famous films before it departs Amazon Prime. Shutter Island, a 1950s crime drama and thriller, is coming off the platform after Friday, May 7. In the thriller, Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio), a detective and World War 2 veteran haunted by his past, and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) investigate the disappearance of a patient at a mental institution.

Teddy and Chuck travel to the titular Shutter Island, the remote location where Ashecliffe Hospital is sequestered.

The detectives race to find the patient, Rachel Solando, a woman who killed her three children, who has gone missing under mysterious circumstances. And to top it off, a hurricane is on the way.

They clash with uncooperative staffers and circumstances become increasingly strange as they begin to uncover a conspiracy.

Teddy must also wrestle with his traumatic past. Visions of his wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams), who died in a house fire, blend into haunting memories of World War 2, specifically flashbacks of the liberation of Dachau concentration camp.

Shutter Island was a box office hit worldwide and received generally positive reviews. Whilst this Scorsese-DiCaprio matchup isn’t as revered The Departed or The Wolf of Wall Street, it still makes for a thrilling watch.

The movie is still rated “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes with a 69% approval score from critics and 77% from regular viewers.

“It may not rank with Scorsese’s best work, but Shutter Island’s gleefully unapologetic genre thrills represent the director at his most unrestrained,” notes Rotten Tomatoes’ critics consensus.

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are frequent collaborators (Image: Getty)

Reviews of Shutter Island

“An exquisitely crafted potboiler offering up two and a quarter hours of thrills, chills and Leonardo DiCaprio freaking out in a nuthouse during a hurricane,” wrote The New York Post.

“It’s enjoyable, it’s weird, it’s dark, it’s thought-provoking, and the performances are great,” wrote Horror Movie Talk.

An audience member on IMDb wrote: “While a tiny bit slow at times, this film is absolutely masterful! While a lot of people praise the ending (rightfully so), not a lot of people praise the build up to it. The film hooks you almost instantly and never lets go. It has you guessing all the way through until the tragic ending. A great film! One of the best!”

Another dubbed it “one of the best movies I’ve ever seen”.

Other Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio films

Gangs of New York (2002)
The Aviator (2004)
The Departed (2006)
Shutter Island (2010)
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Shutter Island is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video until May 7.