Shelter Island (2003)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Expected more

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The hypothesis: I was looking for a fair B erotic thriller,in the vein of 'Possessed by the Night'--a funny,nice pastime .In fact,this is the purest and simplest form of thriller:no "action" is involved,and the subject is the simplest possible—with few characters and relatively fast-paced—a group of people is isolated from the world, etc..Cape Fear is the hallmark of this sub-genre (save the eroticism's, of course,though there was a rich content of implicit eroticism there …).The facts:the movie has nothing of FO Ray's insane verve.Patsy shows almost nothing;though,she is extremely sexy in this film as well.The scene where her lover touches Patsy's 'passerine parts is the most erotic that this crap gets. The movie is very ugly looking. Everything is patently bad and insipid. The (let's call it …) 'script' offered the opportunity of showcasing Patsy as a sexual object,as an erotic toy;well,this does not happen.This director-wanna-be has absolutely no sense of the genre's interest; he had a humble task,and he failed. All the more frustrating as I missed a PA Miller movie that was shown on another TV channel meantime.

Okay fine to be honest it is TERRIBLE. Cheap story that you would expect a grade 4 to write better. basically what happens is: 2 Women (Lesbians) go to a island to have a little vacation. they 1 night find a man knocking at the door and he falls in. They keep him for around 2 days, 1 of the women find him to be unsafe. but shes actually the one who works with him. She hired him to kill the other woman to take her money. But he didn't manage she came back to the house to try and rescue the other woman (the evil) because she thought she was being attacked. She beats him up. Then the bad woman kills the one that was supposed to die. Okay that's basically what happened. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY OR TIME ON THIS.. NOT WORTH IT.

this movie is pretty awful. it lacks suspense and is all around boring and worthless. i connected with none of the characters and now as i think back, i can't even remember how it ends. don't waste your time w/ it. actually i think why i don't remember the end is because i fast forwarded to the end, i do that sometimes, so i can say i've seen a film but i don't have to actually sit and watch the whole thing, i usually get the gist though. it's a bad habit really, if it's getting too long or i'm just feeling too fidgety or it's boring i'll fast forward. i always feel a little guilty when i do it though. like i'm disrespecting the director, and i am, but i've got other things to do than watch a crappy film. now mind you i've only done this a few times and this film happens to be on my 'sucky' film list.

It would be easy to say that this low budget thriller just doesn't work and then point out the obvious flaws but I think it's incredibly sad to watch any actor that is even remotely well known appearing in something so idiotic. Story is about two lesbians that go to their home on Shelter Island to get away from their hectic lives and spend some time alone. Louise Delamere (Ally Sheedy) is a motivational speaker and former pro golfer and while jogging one day is savagely attacked and beaten by an unknown assailant and her girlfriend Alex (Patsy Kensit) is the one that urged her to take time off and heal. *****SPOILER ALERT*****Once they arrive on Shelter Island they run into Sheriff Deluca (Chris Penn) who warns them of an approaching storm. That night during the storm they find an unknown man on their doorstep unconscious and they take him in. He awakens and tells them his name is Lenny (Stephen Baldwin) and he immediately starts to act weird. Once the storm passes they have a difficult time getting rid of him and then to Louise's horror she discovers that Lenny was the one that attacked her before!This film is directed by Geoffrey Schaaf who seems tailored made for those late night Skin-amax flicks that usually star Shannon Tweed but somehow he managed to get some well known actors. This horribly made un-thriller is so bad that it doesn't even work as one of those "It's so bad it's good" films and every male character gives new meaning to the word Neanderthal. When Penn is first introduced in the story he starts to meander and mutter about "being good on the eyes" and then starts to really babble like an idiot. Baldwin is always irritating no matter what he's in and he's astonishingly primitive here and after talking with Sheedy's character he asks her to arm wrestle! Even though he must outweigh her by 150lbs she beats him and in more than one scene she gets the best of him. Every nude scene with Sheedy and Kensit is with body doubles that look nothing like either one of them so if you had the idea of maybe viewing any of these two naked your out of luck. Sheedy's career had hit a high note in 1998 with the fascinating "High Art" and I thought she deserved an Oscar nod for her tough performance but ever since then she has slowly slid back down to crap like this. I can't describe how painfully sad it is to watch a good talented actress like Sheedy having to work in an utter abortion like this. This film fails on every single level and isn't worth anyone's time.