Inception - a review

Rating: 4/4

Dreams and the subconscious, two interrelated and uncontrollable facets of the human brain, are at the core of Christpher Nolan's devilishly clever and deliciously complex thriller, Inception. It is a fact that dreams are a result of imagination woven around memories lodged in the subconscious mind. In other words, dreams have access to even the deepest of secrets locked away in the mind.

Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an Extractor - one who can steal secrets from a victim's mind. He does this by creating a dream world and tricking his victim into participating in the dream. The victim, who is unaware that he is in a dream, populates the dream with his memories. Not surprisingly, Cobb is employed for corporate espionage. However his latest employer, Saito(Ken Watanabe), already knows what his competitior, Fischer Jr. is upto. Saito wants Cobb to do inception - change the competitor's mind by planting an idea, which can effect favourable results to Saito.

Cobb and his team enter Fischer Jr's (Cillian Murphy) dream only to realize that it is not just a dream: its a nightmare. Fischer's calm and polished exterior is counter-balanced by his mind, assault-trained to thwart any attempts of extraction. Exacerbating the situation are Cobb's own ghosts from the past that threaten to sabotage the mission, and a risk of permanent dream state.

The structure of the movie is not unlike the first Matrix movie, where the first hour of the movie is spent explaining an ingenious premise, the rules, the risks, and the rest of the movie where the action takes over. Whereas the latter half of The Matrix was pure eye-candy, Inception requires us to invest our intellect throughout. The action scenes, though not a match for the stylish slow-motion stunts in Matrix, are innovative. Nolan ups the excitement by brilliantly intercutting four parallel action scenes, each one happening in a different dream.

Leonardo DiCaprio, who has not had a single misstep in years, turns in a terrific portrayal of Cobb as a guilt-ridden husband and a desperate father willing to risk anything to get his last job done. The rest of the cast including Joseph Gordon Levitt (500 Days of Summer), Ellen Page(Juno), Ken Watanabe(Last Samurai) deliver good performances. Cillian Murphy underplays his emotions to a sinister effect. Hans Zimmer's score generates a sense of urgency to the proceedings which are already in full-throttle; this is particularly evident in the second half of the movie.

The teaser ending is sure to inspire collective gasps from the audience and also leaves room for further sequels, but it could have been more effective (read about it in my next blog).

At a 148-min run time, this movie leaves you, as one of my friends put it, exhausted and exhilarated. Highly recommended for people looking for an intellectual thriller in the lines of The Matrix, Memento, Minority Report. A re-watch would be rewarding but unlike Memento, is not mandatory. Nolan's interpretation of dreams would leave even Sigmund Freud cheering.