Accent You Ain’t the Positive

There are actors out there who can do accents. Cate Blanchett comes to mind right away, having capably transformed her native Aussie lilt into just about anything you can imagine, from standard-issue Hollywood American to English to a dead-on recreation of the distinctive tones of Katharine Hepburn and even a cartoonish-but-consistent Russian in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. If you’re familiar with Hugh Laurie only from “House,” it’s a bit jarring to hear him speaking with his native British accent because his American accent is so convincing.

There are actors out there who don’t do accents. Ben Affleck cleans up his diction a bit to play Ned Alleyn in Shakespeare in Love, but wisely avoids any serious attempt at a British accent. He brings so much gusto to the role that you never really notice. Kevin Costner dropped his half-hearted effort at a British accent halfway into Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, and played Robin Hood with his usual stoned-surfer-boy voice. I won’t say it works, exactly, but it’s better than the alternative.

And then there are those actors who shouldn’t do accents but do anyway. Standing out among these is Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo’s a fine actor and for the most part turns in A-grade work in in Shutter Island.

The thing that sticks out, though, sadly, is his awful, hammy effort at a Boston accent, a holdover from his previous collaboration with Scorsese, The Departed. I was left wondering whether perhaps Leo had studied the truly dreadful Boston accent attempted by fellow good-actor-who-shouldn’t-do-accents-but-does-anyway actor Tom Hanks while they were filming Catch Me if You Can. I understand that the accent actually highlights something of a key plot point, but it sounded mostly like Jimmy Fallon and Rachel Dratch on SNL shouting “You’re retaaaaahded!” “No, you aaaaah!” at one another.

As for the film itself, Shutter Island is quite good. It definitely falls into the C-level of the Scorsese canon – it’s slick, commercial work more along the lines of The Color of Money and Cape Fear than his A-list classics (GoodFellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver) or his B-list great-but-maybe-not classics (where I’d say all of his previous work with DiCaprio – Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed – falls). Fortunately, we can grade on a curve and C-level Scorsese is easily the equal of a solid B from most other filmmakers. That is to say, this isn’t Scorsese at his best, but even when he’s not at his best he’s still very good.

I guess, ultimately, I was hoping for a little more out of the film. It’s very good, and definitely worth seeing, but I’ve been blown away enough times by Scorsese that to see a film where he doesn’t blow me away is a little disappointing. This is a disjointed effort at a movie review because I’m trying to go in two directions at once. Purely as a movie, independent of all other concerns, it’s an excellent example of the puzzle-box thriller, by turns exciting, frightening and confusing with some good twisty-turny kind of stuff. But if I look at it as a Scorsese Movie rather than as just a movie, it falls a little flat.