Capsule reviews of films playing the week of March 17 

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SHUTTER ISLAND Just how obvious is the big "twist" that concludes Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel? So obvious that some folks who haven't read the book are figuring it out simply by watching the trailer. But just how accomplished is the picture anyway? Enough that viewers will happily be led down the rabbit hole by a director with the ability to distract them with every technique at his disposal. Delivering yet another topnotch performance that might help him win some sort of lifetime achievement award before he even hits 40, Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Teddy Daniels, a U.S. federal marshal who, with his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), travels to a mental asylum located on a remote island off the Massachusetts coastline. The year is 1954, and the lawmen are there to investigate the disappearance of one of the inmates. But although the head of the facility (Ben Kingsley) assures them that they'll have the full cooperation of the entire staff, it soon becomes apparent that everyone has something to hide, and Teddy must suss out the truth even while plagued by debilitating headaches, gruesome flashbacks to his World War II years, and disturbing hallucinations involving his deceased wife (Michelle Williams). Scorsese's in pulp fiction mode here (see also Cape Fear and The Departed), which essentially means that this is one of those pleasing instances when "B"-movie material is given the "A"-list treatment. The screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis is packed with so much intriguing incident that it's easy to not even notice the plotholes until post-movie reflection, and all the craftspeople who won Oscars for Scorsese's The Aviator are back on board, resulting in an immaculate presentation that fully engages the senses. And while the major plot pirouette will disappoint discerning viewers, it's followed by an ambiguous coda that insures all moviegoers will exit the Island with at least something to ponder. ***

A SINGLE MAN Famous fashion designer Tom Ford clearly tries too hard with his directorial debut, but I prefer his overreaching to the cookie-cutter approach displayed by cinematic neophytes merely aping their contemporaries. If nothing else, this adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's novel has a visual style that's clearly its own, and while some of the mise-en-scenes smack of pretension, most are quite beautiful and serve the overall mood of the piece. Set in Los Angeles in the early 1960s, the film casts Colin Firth as British professor George Falconer, a closeted homosexual still reeling from the death of his longtime lover (Matthew Goode, seen frequently in flashback). Falconer stumbles through a seemingly typical day fully intent on killing himself that evening, but before that's set to happen, he spends some meaningful one-on-one time with various people, including his lonely friend Charley (Julianne Moore) and Kenny (About a Boy's Nicholas Hoult, all grown up), a sexually ambiguous student who wants to hear more of his teacher's philosophies. The ending, which would be considered a deus ex machina moment had it not been briefly (and clumsily) telegraphed toward the beginning of the film, is a major letdown, but everything leading up to it is pleasingly mature and understated. ***

UP IN THE AIR In the cinema of 2009, Ryan Bingham should by all accounts emerge as the Protagonist Least Likely To Be Embraced By The Nation's Moviegoers. That's because Ryan works as a downsizing expert, hired to come in and dismiss employees that their own bosses are too gutless to fire face to face. Ryan is excellent at his job, which would make him the antagonist in virtually any other film. But because he's played by charismatic George Clooney, Ryan becomes less a villain and more a representative of the modern American, a tech-age person trying to reconcile his buried humanity with what he or she believes is necessary to survive in this increasingly disconnected world. That's the starting point for this superb adaptation of Walter Kirn's novel, but the film covers a lot more territory -- both literally and figuratively -- before it reaches the finish line. As Ryan jets all over the country doing his job, he makes the acquaintance of a fellow frequent flyer (Vera Farmiga), and they strike up a romance that's among the sexiest and most adult placed on screen in some time. Yet Ryan's carefully constructed life threatens to crash and burn when his company's latest hire (Anna Kendrick), a whiz kid just out of college, implements a plan that will require the grounding of all employees, including Ryan. Penning the script with Sheldon Turner, director Jason Reitman (now 3-for-3 following Juno and Thank You for Smoking) has created a timely seriocomic work that manages to be breezy without once diminishing the sobering realities that constantly hover around the picture's edges (for starters, the fired employees interviewed in the film are not actors but real workers who were let go from their jobs). Farmiga and Kendrick are excellent as the two women who unexpectedly alter the direction of Ryan's life, yet it's Clooney, in his best screen work to date, who's most responsible for earning this magnificent movie its wings. ****