‘Shutter’ is a drag: Scorsese’s horror-noir bogs down fast

Leonardo DiCaprio barfs and sweats as he takes a ferry through the fog to a foreboding and isolated insane asylum in the opening moments of "Shutter Island."

As Ted Daniels, a federal marshal sent to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a patient on this craggy East Coast Alcatraz, he's seasick and nervous, and why not?

The asylum is shrouded in mist and mystery, rumored to be a place of barbarous experimentation, forced lobotomies, injections of experimental brain-frying drugs, operating under the protection of powerful forces.

And look at who's running it. You don't have to be Scooby-Doo to know that when you find yourself at an insane asylum operated by Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow, your best bet is to excuse yourself.

Or heed the advice of the terrified patient who grabs Ted's notebook and scribbles in it the following: "Run."

The movie's opening section is good horror-movie fun, a chance for director Martin Scorsese to display his craft and transparent, encyclopedic love of horror classics past, to stage an homage-a-thon to Lewton, Kubrick, Hitchcock, etc.

In that spirit, you eagerly settle in and wait for Scorsese to drag you to hell.

"Shutter Island," though, is sometimes just a drag, as likely to leave you exhausted and depressed as gripped by the peculiar exhilaration of a well-judged horror movie.

Scorsese's ripping-good opener slows to a near halt in a ponderous, gruesome midsection that delves into Daniels' personal demons, illustrated by flashbacks that check the movie's momentum and confuse its tone.

We learn, for instance, that Daniels is a World War II combat vet who in the course of his service liberated Dachau, and we are "treated" to Daniels' horrid nightmares - the frozen dead, eyes and mouths open, reaching toward us with their icy fingers.

One minute, Scorsese is flipping through the horror catalog, building a movie within a world of movies, parading DiCaprio and his fedora in front of cheesy blue-screen backdrop and feeding him arch, '50s-style dialogue.

The next, he's quoting from "The Sorrow and the Pity" and using (misusing?) images that do not fit so easily into his postmodern house of horrors.

Scorsese also shows a particular attraction to the image of murdered children, following the lead of contemporary horror hacks. As the mainstream-movie shock line moves past women and teens, it encircles children, and it's a bit of a shame to watch Scorsese go in that lamentable direction.

The blue bodies of dead kids are laid out like fish, and now it's not Daniels who's queasy - it's me.

In fairness, that's the course laid out by novelist Dennis Lehane (author of such lighthearted fare as "Mystic River"), to whose book Scorsese sticks closely.

And the crux of the movie is its "nothing is as it seems" construction. Here, Scorsese is on the money. He finds smart, lucid ways to preserve Lehane's intricate foreshadowing, the story's layered narrative and visuals (take note of fire, water, bandages).

And the movie picks up speed again as it nears it conclusion, helped by cameos from Jackie Haley, Patricia Clarkson and Michelle Williams.

As for DiCaprio, he finishes the marathon, inhabiting a role that's every bit as grueling as his in "The Departed." What he can't locate, though, is a path to his character's tormented soul. The finale is meant to be both surprising and emotionally shattering, and "Shutter Island" gets about halfway there.

Because we associate Scorsese so closely with Robert De Niro, it's startling to realize that "Shutter Island" is now the director's fourth collaboration with DiCaprio, the actor who's dominated his recent body of work.

Scorsese purists see his DiCaprio period as a sellout, a surrender to Hollywood-ism. I think that's unfair. Whatever may have gone wrong with "Gangs of New York," it wasn't lack of artistic ambition. I think the director's entitled to have some genre-hopping fun, and have no problem with his Oscar for "The Departed."

I do not see one, though, in this movie's future.