Certification. 12A
Running Time. 2 hours 28 mins
Director. Christopher Nolan
Cast. Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Pete Postlethwaite, Dileep Rao, Ken Watanabe.
Rating. 95%
Inception is a film that requires a substantial amount of suspension of disbelief and a significant amount of trust in the director.
For me to try and explain the plot of Inception simply wouldn’t do the film justice. In any case coming to Inception with as few preconceived ideas as possible is preferable.
Nonetheless, Inception introduces the audience to a new kind of corporate espionage - the infiltration of dreams. Director Christopher Nolan wastes no time explaining how the technology works, instead we’re straight into the action with the main protagonists apparently auditioning for powerful businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe). Saito wants the team to do the seemingly impossible - instead of extracting a piece of information from a dream, Saito wants the team to plant an idea in the mind of a rival.
The assembled cast, and the recruitment of the team, are one of Inception’s strongest components. Assembling a team, each member bringing with them a unique skill set, is an integral part of the heist genre. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, the figurehead of the dream infiltration team - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy and Dileep Rao. The team are joined by Ellen Page, who’s character Ariadne serves as a device for much of the exposition, and believe me, the science behind Inception requires a lot of explanation.
But Christopher Nolan’s lightning-paced direction means there is seldom time to ponder, analyse or deconstruct the preceding piece of action before another breathtaking set piece is unveiled. The convergence of the disparate realities crashing down on top of each other has to be one of the dramatic (and satisfying) conclusions of any film.
Setting aside the spectacular visuals and the impressive performance of the cast, perhaps Christopher Nolan’s greatest triumph is that in an era of sequels, franchises and comic book instalments, and in a climate of studio reboots where old ideas are routinely repackaged to audiences as shiny new things, Inception was an original. A film that was daring enough to reference Escher, Freud and Jung in amongst breathtaking action sequences. There may be superficial similarities with Dreamscape, The Matrix and the little known David Cronenberg thriller, eXistenZ, but Christopher Nolan’s bold vision remains the main driver of originality.
For in the midst of the science fiction fuelled heist movie, there’s a delicate film that examines a doomed relationship. Much like Christopher Nolan’s second film, Memento, Inception is at heart a tragedy, where the central character is conflicted by a terrible burden of guilt, either consciously or otherwise.
As a viewing experience, the finer details of everything you witnessed, how you got there, or how it all made sense may evade you [much like a vivid dream], but there’s no denying Inception is a stunning piece of cinema. Daring and electrifying, and in my opinion, a near perfect film.
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