Inception Film Review by Roberto Acuna

The seventh film from Christopher Nolan, the director of arguably the best superhero film ever made and fast becoming one of my favourite directors, is here, and it’s a dream. (Sorry).

Following a billion dollar success was never going to be easy, but Nolan chose to return with a film from an original screenplay, restoring the elaborate psychological puzzles of his previous work. From the amnesiac investigator of Memento, the strained, sleep deprived cop in Insomnia, the antagonistic magicians of The Prestige, to the Joker’s moral mind games in The Dark Knight, Inception deals with a disturbed individual who’s skewed psychosis shapes the world around them, though never to this degree, or this literally.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Dom Cobb, a thief who is hired by powerful corporations to steal other people’s ideas through their dreams. On the run after being accused of a crime in his native United States, Cobb is forced to travel the world finding work that fits his gifts while evading his pursuers, never able to return to his home or see his children. That is until a crooked businessman, played by Ken Watanabe, offers to wipe his records clean if Cobb was able to implant an idea rather than steal one – ‘inception’. Much to his lieutenant Arthur’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) consternation, Cobb agrees to the job, as having done the job once before, knows the procedures, the payoffs and the pitfalls.

The film then follows Cobb as he sets about assembling his team, the story becoming a heist film into the human mind, the procedural detail of the genre used to create a template in which to visit the different levels of reality within the dreams; the process in which the theft will take place explained before the event itself, raising the tension when things go wrong; the relationship between Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) and his terminally ill father Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite) becoming the target, with the idea placed into the young Fischer’s mind the big final score.

I’ll leave details of the plot at that, as going in without knowing too much I think will raise the enjoyment levels. Although confusing at times, it never leaves your grasp of understanding, with all the things you feel you may have missed making you want to see the film again rather than putting you off.

The film deals with the mechanics of the dream stealing quickly and efficiently, never succumbing to the techno fetish of most science fiction. It takes place in the contemporary world, with the dream world set in recognisable settings, allowing for the whims of its dreamer. The imagery is beautiful and original both in the real world and the dream, elegance and taste permeate the film.

Fans of Christopher Nolan will know what to expect: a well-written cinematic puzzle, populated with complex, emotionally disturbed characters, with his forays into Gotham City giving the director an added confidence for the grand spectacle. Leonardo DiCaprio continues his career streak of brilliant performances, while Nolan continues his own career streak ­­of no bad films. An oasis in a very dry summer.