Say one thing about Leonardo DiCaprio; say he knows how to choose himself a movie role! There are a lot of good looking individuals around who can act a little, but the Titanic star sets himself above the rest by consistently choosing great movies to strut his stuff in. Of course, it can’t hurt to be Christopher Nolan’s first choice either, since Nolan is probably the hottest movie maker in Hollywood today, with recent hits like Memento and The Dark Knight. Nolan both wrote and directed Inception, and he and DiCaprio are surely onto another massive hit with this sci-fi thriller.
Inception is not a perfect film, but it gets pretty close in my opinion. Its two and a half hours literally fly because of the fantastic mix of fast-paced action, stunning visuals, mind-blowing plot and strong acting. Inception plays around with one central paradox: What is reality and what is dreaming? Which of the two is most real? Keep in mind that with this theme, Inception WANTS to disorientate you as part of an overall plot device and so it has layers and layers of differing perspectives, shifting scenes, and surprising character development. Yes, you will have to concentrate to keep up but that is a major part of the fun!
DiCaprio plays Cobb, an espionage agent who specialises in stealing ideas from other people’s heads. He enters their dream states to source their greatest secrets. Cobb’s own subconscious is plagued by the horrific death of his wife, and the fact that he has been blamed for her murder. As a result he cannot enter the States and is prevented from seeing his children. His desperation to be there for his kids means he takes on a job no one believes can be done involving the task of not stealing an idea, but instead of planting one inside the mind of a billionaire on behalf of a rival corporation.
Cobb’s reward will see all charges dropped and so in the best tradition of great heist movies, he sets about setting up a crack team with differing talents. Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is his long-time partner; Eames (Tom Hardy) is a con-artist and master at deception; Yusuf (Dileep Rao) is a master chemist. And there is a new recruit, Ariadne (Ellen Page), a brilliant young architect who is brought in to build the actual dream world – something that Cobb can no longer do since his subconscious is so fraught with guilt and pain over his broken family.
Cobb's team are hired to enter the dream world of Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), a billionaire with severe father issues. The problem is that Fischer’s mind has been trained to deal with dream infiltration agents, so they have to deal with all sorts of gun-toting ‘mindguards’ – mental projections that exist to protect him at this level. I won’t give away too much more of the plot suffice to say that there are plenty of layers and endless depths to plumb. Despite the inevitable confusion, you are kept in the story by its visual and emotional rollercoaster style. There may be plot holes in Inception, but I didn’t notice any, and at the end of the day what most captivated me was that the emotional connection matched the intellectual challenge. I found myself really caring about Cobb and his team, and rooting for him to get back to his children despite the illegal means he was using to get there.
Inception is well worth seeing and fully earns its four and a half stars out of five. Be aware that there is some strong language and violence throughout.