INCEPTION (2010)

I must admit, I've stopped buying myself DVD's to add to the collection, especially Blu-Rays. With Lovefilm, the PS3, Sky film channels, a mum that doesn't seem to know that you can actually rent DVD's these days, there's little point in me filling up my small one-bed flat with rows and rows of DVD's. Having said that, Inception was an exception to the rule. I was always going to get this one, and Blu-Ray was a must. So, on New Years Day, Spag bol made, I plonked myself down on the sofa to revisit Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster, and as I did so, I wanted to try and explain why I was so desperate to get my hands on this on it's release and why UK cinema-goers loved it so much, pushing it into number 4 in the UK box office in 2010.



Leo DiCaprio plays Tom Cobb, who heads up a team of thieves. But they are no ordinary thieves, they steal thoughts and information which means the vaults they are cracking are people's minds, and the best way to do this is through the dreams of the 'subjects'. Cobb is offered one final job (it's always the final jobs that are the hardest aren't they?) but instead of theft, he must plant an idea - Inception. An apparent impossibility. Nolan, who wrote and directed, has really come up with a genius idea here for an action film. It means that he can do whatever he wants, wherever he wants - no location is beyond the realms of possibility. Irritating things such as gravity and common sense are eradicated immediately. However, if anyone knows Nolan, it's not going to be that straightforward and he isn't going to pin a whole film on one good idea. He adds depth and complex themes by using sub-plots involving corporate espionage and a complicated father/son relationship as well as a back story for Cobb that puts the whole operation in jeopardy.

Cobb has a team in place to help him with this job, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe and Dileep Rao, each having a specific job, just like an orthodox bank job. Ellen Page plays the architect, it's her job to create the dream world and this premise gives some tremendous scenes where Nolan toys with our perceptions of what is possible. Tom Hardy, pretty much stealing the show here, plays a fraudster, he impersonates other people in the dream world, again an idea that gives Nolan's imagination the opportunity to run riot. And what a riot it is. The action set pieces are a wonder to behold. Fights in corridors that roll, defying gravity, a massive shoot out in an arctic base (very Bond), a kidnap scene in torrential rain as a freight train batters city streets in to submission. Nolan's execution of action is expertly done, every stunt and special effect feels physical, it feels real. Even where CGI is used, it feels weighty, none of the light, bouncy Spiderman effects here. 

As I mentioned previously though, it isn't just this aspect that makes the film so appealing. Nolan wouldn't let one of his films be so superficial and shallow. Cobb's back story about his wife has a darkness and an edge to it, and as it slowly creeps into his sub-conscious you really feel that he is out of control and that he is on the brink of madness. Another fine performance from Leo, really becoming a fine actor and choosing films that are challenging and roles that have a depth, something for him to really get his teeth into. Tom Hardy is all machismo and is great to watch, Page and Gordon-Levitt feel under-used and as though they are going through the motions, Cillian Murphy is always a pleasure to watch (I just wish he was in more), Tom Berenger pops up with a nice cameo, bit of Michael Caine, and the late, great Pete Postlethwaite is dependable as always with the little screen time he is given.

The second viewing of this film did chuck up a negative I'm afraid though. Some of the dialogue at times felt laden with exposition, which I suppose is inevitable when you are dealing with a plot as complex as this - dreams within a dream, within a dream, all coming together at the end - but when you have actors as fine as this on show, it's a shame that some of the dialogue is limited to pointing us in the right direction. Having said that, it's never spelt out to us, we are given freedom to come to conclusions ourselves - Nolan clearly respects his audience.

This negative though is a minor blip on an otherwise faultless film and it is a measure of Nolan's stock in Hollywood at the moment - off the back of the Batman films, a studio has given him a substantial wedge of money, left him to his own devices and this is what he has come up with. An imaginative, expertly crafted, action thriller, set inside the minds of it's protagonists with an ending that exhilarates and moves you in equal measure with the final frame continuing to rattle around in your brain long after the closing credits.

This film's success, and that of Nolan's Batman reboot, is proof that we want films with substance and you can create an action film that can stimulate the grey matter and still rake it in at the box office. Michael Bay take note.