Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2010

To stretch the cliché to its limits, all is not what it seems in this dark and devious, A-list B-movie from Martin Scorsese. In 1954, a federal marshal (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives at an island hospital for the criminally insane to investigate the disappearance of a patient. But his thinking becomes increasingly muddled as the investigation progresses. Stonewalling by menacing psychiatrists Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow, memories of liberating Dachau, visitations by his dead wife (hallucinogens in his food?)—all blur together into a great gothic soup as we move toward a singularly fitting twist ending. (138 min)