In their first film together (Gangs of New York), Leonardo DiCaprio took direction from Martin Scorsese to play a son seeking vengeance for his father's death in a gang-ridden 19th Century New York City. In their second film collaboration (The Aviator), Scorsese and DiCaprio reunited to deliver a vivid portrait of the eccentric Howard Hughes' unsettlingly fascinating walk on the thin line between genius and insanity. In their third film together (The Departed), they brought to life a mix of characters playing both sides of the law and trying to balance their multiple identities, including DiCaprio's young cop deep undercover inside Boston's Irish Mafia. And while the two men have literally traveled across time, to different cities, and through different class systems and societal microcosms within the handful of films they have made together, as they reunite once again in this winter's Shutter Island, what we see is not only a familiar actor-director partnership, but a return to almost every one of the themes and questions the pair has visited in each of their previous films.

A psychological thriller set on an island-bound mental institution for the criminally insane in 1954, Shutter Island begins when U.S. Marshals Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) arrive on the island to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients. As expected, circumstances are suspicious, truth seems near impossible to find, and with a hurricane there to knock out power and cause a variety of other mayhem, the facility's ready population of creepy patients and suspicious doctors are there to keep you perpetually wondering what is around the next corner. But as the story by author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone, Baby, Gone) unfolds, what we slowly begin to discover around most of its corners is less a devious medical/governmental conspiracy and more a haunting portrait that puts insanity closer to us all than we might like, and delves into the implications of truth, identity, and the wounds of our past in its very construction.

Throughout the film, we encounter a number of different patients who have been incarcerated on the island. We meet a man who confidently admits to ripping off the face a woman for asking for a glass of water, yet sees nothing but complete reason in his actions. We meet a middle-aged woman who acknowledges that killing her husband with an axe was probably not right, yet still fears what she might do if allowed to ever go free. We meet Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), a woman who came home one afternoon and drowned her three children, yet still believes they are alive and she still at home.

"Seriously, Doctor," asks Teddy. "How is it possible that the truth never gets through to her?"

Dr. Cawley's (Ben Kingsley) response, "Sanity is not a choice."

And the question that follows, "Then what is it?"

As one of the doctors tells Teddy, where there has been trauma there are wounds&ellips; and "wounds create monsters." Cue a look into haunting images of pasts that ask the minds they infiltrate: Why didn't you save me? Why did you kill me? Why didn't you help me? How can you say you really loved me? Enter the unsettling reality that we all likely have the building blocks to insanity within us. "They can say that about anyone," Teddy realizes with a sense horror. "Anyone at all."

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