WE WERE exhausted halfway through Christopher Nolan?s groundbreaking sci-fi thriller, ?Inception??but, we couldn?t take our eyes off the screen! The brilliant filmmaker has been among our favorite directors ever since we saw his 1998 mindbender, ?Following,? at a film festival.
With the exception of the existentialist bust, ?The Prestige,? Nolan has pretty much delivered on his filmmaking promise?from ?Memento? to the Oscar-worthy ?The Dark Knight.?
Anchored by the outstanding performances of Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page and Marion Cotillard, the megman?s latest triumph, though occasionally tedious to watch, takes viewers on disparate planes of reality that eventually converge in a rousing finale.
Nolan?s espionage thriller doesn?t just navigate around the globe, it hopscotches through parallel realities as it traverses the confounding world of dreams: Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) is a special kind of thief?he steals valuable ideas from deep within the subconscious during a person?s dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable.
Redemption
Dom?s dream-extracting ability makes him thrive in the treacherous world of corporate espionage. Unfortunately, it also cost him everyone he?s ever loved, including his departed wife, Mal (Cotillard). The first time we see him, he?s on the run from US authorities. His latest assignment offers Dom a chance at redemption?by way of ?inception.?
In the deadliest heist of his career, the grieving protagonist isn?t just tasked to steal an idea?he?s required to ?plant? one in the mind of Robert (Cillian Murphy), who?s heir to the multibillion-dollar business empire of mogul, Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite).
Helping Dom accomplish his mission is an exceptional team: Reliable point man, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt); chemist, Yusuf (Dileep Rao); brilliant forger, Eames (Tom Hardy); dream architect, Ariadne (Page), and his father-in-law, Miles (Michael Caine), who taught him how to ?share? dreams. Everything goes as planned?until someone from the deep recesses of his subconscious begins thwarting Dom?s plans!
Though it?s 30 minutes too long, Nolan masterfully weaves his brilliantly imagined thriller with intriguing scientific concepts that have been haunting humans in their waking state: How relevant are dreams in our lives? Are they merely projections of our subconscious? And, what do we learn from these disjointed snippets of memories and yearnings that don?t have beginnings and endings?
Boundaries
Nolan adroitly manufactures a semblance of scientific believability that establishes boundaries for the movie?s complicated concept. What keeps it ?relatable? are the existential themes?guilt, redemption, intimacy, the consequences of sin?Nolan utilizes to drive the story forward and keep the viewers guessing until the credits roll.
?Inception? isn?t just a mindbender, it?s also an edge-of-your-seat actioner whose thematic conceit allows the production to defy the laws of physics and psychology.
You?ll probably need more than a single viewing to understand the whole thing. Sometimes, it?ll drive you nuts just trying to figure a way out of one psychological maze after another! But, Nolan and his actors make some cogent arguments about the mysteries of the subconscious that are hard to refute.
Nolan?s exceptional thriller bends rules of fact, fiction and fantasy?and you have to watch it to see how it?s done. But, this film would have been harder to take without its outstanding actors, who embrace and fuel the production?s out-of-this-world concept.
DiCaprio and company don?t just manage to steal moviegoers? hearts and minds, they also plant seeds of appreciation for a summer movie that dares to be more than the usual Hollywood actioner.
