Shutter (2008)
May 3, 2008“What’s that in the photo?”
Yahoo! Synopsis
For photographer Ben (Joshua Jackson) and his new wife Jane (Rachael Taylor), his new assignment–a lucrative fashion shoot in Tokyo–was supposed to be a kind of working honeymoon. With this exotic professional opportunity and the limitless possibilities of a new marriage, Ben and Jane arrive in Japan. But as they make their way on a mountain road leading to Mt. Fuji, their new life together comes to, literally, a crashing halt.
Their car smashes into a woman standing in the middle of the road, who has materialized out of nowhere. Upon regaining consciousness after the accident, Ben and Jane cannot find any trace of the girl Jane believes she hit with the car. Shaken by the accident and by the girlâs disappearance, Ben and Jane arrive in Tokyo, where Ben begins his glamorous assignment. Having worked in Japan before and fluent in the language, Ben is comfortable there, and he eagerly reunites with old friends and colleagues.
Jane, a newcomer to the city, feels very much like a stranger in a strange land as she makes tentative, unsettling forays through the city. Ben, meanwhile, has discovered mysterious white blurs–eerily evocative of a human form–that have materialized on an entire dayâs work from the expensive photo shoot. Janeâs concerns escalate as she believes the blurs in Benâs photos are the dead girl from the road, who is now seeking vengeance for them leaving her to die
Review
Shutter was almost universally trashed by critics and movie goers alike. The movie is nothing more then a ghost story sat in Japan. The tension builds as Ben and Jane start to realize they are being haunted and followed by a ghostly image that appears in all their photos. Shutter is decently scary, however the script could have used a few more rewrites. We have good actors in Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor but the characters are so one dimensional.
The film falls apart in the final acts where the standard ghost story cliches make their appearance. I saw the ending coming half way through the movie and I was dreading it like a child dreads taking a bath. I so wanted something to happen to divert us from what was sure to be a dreadful final 10 minutes of the movie, but nothing happened.
This movie would have worked brilliantly as an hour long X-Files episode, but it fails as an hour and a half major motion picture. One positive note was the cinematography. It was shot on location in Japan and that definitely gave the film an authentic and beautiful look.
Cast
- Joshua Jackson as Benjamin Shaw
- Rachael Taylor as Jane Shaw
- James Kyson Lee as Ritsuo
- David Denman as Bruno
- John Hensley as Adam
- Maya Hazen as Seiko
- Megumi Okina as Megumi Tanaka
Ratings and Suggestions
The movie is rated PG-13 for intense terror, disturbing images, sexual content and language. I am giving it one and a half stars because despite it’s poor screenplay, the actors were good and there are enough scary moments not to make the film a total wash. It could have been so much better.
