This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Rattlebones’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
Is there any worse plot device in film than ending a film "it was all a dream?"
Shutter Island proves that there is something in fact much worse, the "it was all a delusion." Like Jacob's Ladder, the film sets us up for a twist that actually insults the viewer for spending the prior couple hours watching the movie.
What is the point of all the mystery-solving, conspiracy generating that happens in the first two hours of the film? It's a collective red herring based on a simplistic notion of the mind and psychiatry.
While Scorcese is too talented of a filmmaker for the noir stuff to be anything less than engaging, he's building a sand castle.
What's the point of this story? How does it depict the mentality ill?
Easily my least favourite Scorsese with one of the cheapest, stupidest endings in movie history.