Christopher Nolan is a man who likes to keep you guessing. When he isn't reinventing Batman with two almost perfect movies, he's making his own movies where he can roam free of studio sensibilities. Following, Memento, The Prestige and now Inception. These are his puzzle movies, the stuff he loves to do. Nolan places you within the world of the movie or inside the fractured mind of his protagonists and gives you all the pieces you need in order to solve the puzzle. He's used fractured chronology with all his films and takes it a step further by adding the dream world in Inception. A film that will keep people guessing and arguing about, hopefully, for years to come. All the answers are there. The question is whether you're able to see them with a different perspective.
In this movie, which is at it's most basic, a heist movie, Nolan expertly weaves a story about dreams, manipulation, guilt and ultimately, forgiveness. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, an expert extractor. A man hired by faceless corporations to go into the dreams of their competitors to find out their secrets. We pick him up at the beginning of the film while he's in the middle of a job. His right hand man, Arthur, played by Joseph-Gordon Levitt, joins him as his researcher and point man. The job turns out to be a recruitment exercise done by a mysterious businessman named Saito, played by Ken Watanabe. Saito is impressed by Cobb's work and wants to hire him for a dangerous job. Saito wants him to not simply enter a man's dreams but to also implant an idea. It's an almost impossible task and Cobb initially refuses but is lured back by a promise to get him back to the U.S. Cobb wants to get back to his two kids and is willing to do the job under that condition. It's the framework of a heist film. Along with Arthur, Cobb makes the rounds looking for a team. The mark is a man named Fischer (Cillian Murphy). Fischer is about to inherit a major energy company following the death of his father. Saito doesn't want him to continue on with his father's business. That's the idea that he wants Cobb to implant. Cobb assembles his team and with them he is ready to do the job. He has college student Ariadne (Ellen Page) become his Architect. The person who creates the dream world. He hires Eames (Tom Hardy) as his Forger. His job is to impersonate people in the dream. Yusef (Dileep Rao) is hired as the Chemist. He has to develop the chemicals needed to put people to sleep. Cobb explains to them that the only way to implant an idea is to delve further into Fischer's mind than anyone has been able to. Not only making dreams within dreams but going two and three levels deeper. Each level becomes more and more treacherous as they go in. Five minutes in the real world is equal to one hour in the dream world. Each level they further go down, that time grows exponentially. Four or five levels in, that time grows to decades. You may be dreaming for an hour but your mind has experienced decades of time. Dying inside a dream isn't so dangerous in a regular dream. You simply wake up. Dying in a dream that's 4 or 5 levels deep means your mind enters a state of limbo. It doesn't know it's dreaming and will stay in that state until your mind is finally convinced that it is. The plan seems difficult enough already but it gets more so when you realize that Cobb has the memory of his dead wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) appearing in the dreams. She represents his subconscious and tries to sabotage his jobs. He has unresolved guilt about her death and it bleeds into whatever work he's doing. He refuses to let go and it's this refusal that places him and his team in danger. He knows that he should tell them this but is confident that he's able to keep Mal at bay. He's wrong.
What follows is what can only be described as a third act that is one single sustained scene. From the moment they enter Fischer's dream they are thrown into chaos. Fischer has been trained by an Extractor how to protect his mind against intruders. Shootouts and car chases punctuate this sequence. They are forced to improvise and delve further into Fischer's mind while on the move. Weightless fights, snowmobile chases, exploding buildings all add to this sequence. Nolan juggles these moments with an expert touch. His editing is balanced and we're able to follow a moment as it happens in one level of the dream and it's ripples are felt in all subsequent levels. Hans Zimmer provides an immense score that rarely lets up. It's pounding and propulsive like his Dark Knight score. It even has some cool subtle touches that you'll only realize afterwards. The cinematography in this film is breathtaking. The dream imagery is quite amazing and imaginative. It's a nice balance between practical effects and computer generated effects. Nolan is one of the only filmmakers left who actually prefers to do as many things in camera as possible. Levitt has a fight in a hallway that we've all seen in the trailers that is done without CG. It's all practical and taken from Stanley Kubrick's idea for rotating sets in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's choreography is realistic and amazing. Nolan also prefers location shooting opposed to studio sets or green screen. It's refreshing to see this. The snow scenes feel like a nice homage to On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
The performances are all top notch. DiCaprio does admirable work. Levitt showcases a chemistry with all of the members of the team. I wish there was more of his interactions with them. Page is able to bring some heart into her role which is typically the entry point for the audience. I think Hardy is the standout here. He's suave and funny as Eames. He has a bit of a rivalry with Arthur which could have used a bit more. He's adept at the action and shows he has the chops to be a star. He's been cast as the new Mad Max. Here's hoping those films actually get made.
Much has been said about the secrets of the film and while I would love to dissect the multiple theories about the meanings of the dreams and the ending, I can't in this review. Possibly in a thread with people who haven't seen it yet? I will say this, Nolan is not the type of filmmaker who will lie to his audience. He likes to lay out all the puzzle pieces and have you do the work. Some will look at some points in this movie and say that it's a cheap trick but it's not. Close attention will reveal that you were shown certain details while you heard something different. Consider who is telling you these things and you'll being to unravel what the movie really is about. Here's a hint. Ignore the top.
Christopher Nolan has given us a shining beacon in this stale summer at the movies. He's proven that there's still an audience for smart stories that don't hold your hand throughout. Not everything has to be based on a comic, a video-game or a tv show. Original ideas can still flourish and open our minds to new experiences in film. The man is a genius and, in my opinion, the heir apparent to Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick made movies that. decades afterwards, still have us analyzing frame by frame and having discussions about their meanings. Nolan has achieved exactly that.
9.5/10
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