It’s been 10 years since writer/director Christopher Nolan burst onto the Hollywood scene with the superbly crafted Memento. Streamlining a short story written by his brother Jonathan, Nolan constructed a mentally satisfying film whilst always appearing in control of the film’s tricky plot. Whereas the Wachowski Brothers seemed to lose scope on the narrative of the Matrix trilogy and threw in a few fancy action sequences to keep the sci-fi trilogy from turning into a pile of cyber-shit, Nolan has always had the ability to weave popcorn-pleasing moments of cinema with a story that never leaves you wanting more. His second picture, Insomnia, perhaps proved the most tricky, with the interesting idea of living as an insomniac sidelined for a more straight-up detective narrative. But with Inception, Nolan has arguably made his best film, and certainly an early contender for film of the year .
Outlining the plot in a written review would not do it any justice whatsoever. In it’s most basic form, Inception is a heist movie. But replace the bank vault with a target’s dreams, the gold bullion with secrets, and a rag-tag band of crooks with an efficient team of modern day Al Capone’s led by a swaggering Leonardo DiCaprio. Like pulling off a bank heist, you can imagine that stealing secrets through a target’s subconscious is frowned upon by the relevant authorities, and in an effort to clear his name, Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) takes on one last job (yeah that ol’ cliché still applies here). But it’s no ordinary job, and rather than stealing secrets, Cobb is hired to plant an idea into the mind of an heir to a business empire (Cillian Murphy) by his rival (Ken Watanabe). Creating an organic idea within a person’s subconscious (known as an ‘inception’) proves to be slightly tricker than simply stealing an idea and Cobb and his team are forced to explore multiple layers of their target’s mind in order to complete their mission.
But there’s so much more to the story than that brief summary. There’s all the rules of entering a dream to be explained, the idea of dreams within dreams and the mental struggle Cobb has over the death of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) who often materialises within Cobb’s subconscious. It’s a film full of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moments. Be fearful of loo breaks and distractions; missing the odd scene could result in losing a key plot element that you’ll never be able to recover from.
But Nolan also acknowledges that his audience does not want to be completely bombarded with a thesis about the behaviour of someone’s dreams. As a result, the pace of the first 90 minutes is absolutely breathless, with some stunning scenes of entire cities bending over each other, a chase sequence worthy of the Bourne trilogy through the streets of Mombassa, and a few very-pretty-but-oh-so-expensive shots of city scapes, where you sense Nolan would have loved to have plonked Batman on a few of the buildings. And none of the action feels out of place. Everything feels like it has a purpose. Even a freight train hurtling down a road in the middle of a city is explained. A fight in a hotel corridor that takes place in zero-gravity doesn’t feel like it was simply placed there as a way of spending film studio’s dollars. I could explain to you quite easily why both of these things happened in Inception, but I could never fully understand why there was a bloody-great freeway chase in the middle of The Matrix Reloaded. It once again demonstrates the grip Nolan holds his (forgive the pun) mind-boggling narrative and why he is one of the brightest talents in Hollywood.
The one problem with this however is Nolan is in danger of becoming a great showman more than a great director. While he has assembled one of the greatest casts in a movie this year, none of them ever really seem to get out of second gear. Don’t get me wrong, everyone in the film puts in a solid performance and you’d be hard pressed to fault the way in which they tackle their characters. It’s just they always seem to play second fiddle to the ideas in Nolan’s head. DiCaprio never reaches the giddy heights of his performances in The Aviator nor The Departed, and whilst his mental struggle with the death of his wife affects the plot’s narrative, you never really sense he’s mentally troubled man. Cobb is a very clinical thief, lamenting on simple mistakes, and this is mirrored in DiCaprio’s performance. Very clinical, hard to criticize, but nothing that makes you sit back on go ‘wow’. The supporting cast do a good job of moving the story along. Particularly impressive were Tom Hardy (Bronson) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer) who both stood out as functional yet interesting characters, adding a bit of much needed humour to the piece. Other than that, it’s a list of Nolan usual suspects, with Michael Caine offering a brief cameo and Ken Watanabe getting much more screen time to exude his unnaturally creepy persona than in Batman Begins.
When I say ‘play second fiddle to Nolan’s ideas’ that is by no means a bad thing. Nolan is one of the most imaginative filmmakers of his generation, and he has insured that his vision comes across absolutely perfectly on screen. It’s easy to forget in this day and age that CGI can be done badly (I’m looking at you Clash of the Titans). But the visuals in Inception are brilliant, adding a sense of awe when needed, and when a feeling of isolation is required, the visuals appear right on cue in all their pixelated glory. Following on from The Dark Knight, camerawork from Wally Pfister is nothing short of staggering. There are a great range of long steady shots to mad handheld shots to keep the film moving.
It’s just a shame Inception loses a bit of momentum towards the end. As Cobb and co. advance through dreams within dreams, we are told time is extended in proportion (10 seconds on the first level is 3 minutes on the second and 60 minutes on the third etc.). It just feels the end is prolonged just that bit too long in order to wrap up every loose end. Nevertheless, Nolan ends the film with his usual little twist, executed in with the panache other filmmakers could only dream of. Too often I’ve sat and watched a film and been totally underwhelmed. With Inception, Nolan has created a film clever enough to keep even the biggest cinema buff on their toes, whilst entertaining enough to draw in the punters; a balance he first got right with The Dark Knight. But Inception is so much better than Nolan’s second Batman. We don’t need heroic (excuse the pun once again) performances from the leads to drag us through a bog-standard plot. Here, Nolan uses all his craft and guile to lead us on an adventure that’s both original and utterly compelling. A must watch for all.
