Betsy Sharkey’s pick: ‘Shutter Island’

Director Martin Scorsese’s dark and devious brain tease is as much a conversation as a movie. It’s in the best noir tradition and filled with delicious references there for the finding. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance is sweat-on-the-brow, worry-in-the-eyes terrific as the cop with a major mystery to solve. But if you think Leo’s got a lot on his mind, with a twist around every corner of the isolated asylum for the criminally insane where an inmate’s gone missing, that’s nothing compared to what Scorsese has in store for the rest of us. Instead of tying up loose ends, he keeps unraveling them so by the time he drops the big one, you should be good for hours of post-cinema parsing. Go with a friend.

-- Betsy Sharkey