Review: 'Inception' is deep, dark and a bit flaky

Film: Inception
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Lukas Haas
Director:  Christopher Nolan
Rating: * * *

The man who specialises in making deep dark movies comes up with yet another, but not as deep or as dark as we expected. Christopher Nolan’s hotly anticipated film, ‘Inception’ takes the viewer deep into the labyrynths of the subconcious mind but it’s not substantive enough- nothing  that we can truly believe in without exception!

The film has an altogether outlandish premise. Caught in a web of deciet and seeking redemption, Dom Cobb(Di Caprio), a skilled thief-the best at extracting secrets from deep inside the recesses of the subconscious mind during the dream state, is given his last chance at getting back to his children- but only if he can accomplish the impossible; Inception! Nolan creates an extremely believable world of high-stakes industrial espionage through mind games , the kind never seen before on wide-screen.

Nolan’s film toys with several themes- The blurry lines between perception and reality, the insidious nature of ideas, and the human capacity for self-delusion. The narrative is cleverly layered- there are dreams within dreams, real-time and dream time get blurry edges,  Laws and paradoxes come into play at every turn with death within a dream turning out to be even more perilious.

It’s a cerebral play that demands deep concentration- a mere distracted wavering, here or there could put paid to the overall experience and enjoyment. But even if you do manage that impossibility it could still leave you feeling deep-sixed.

Nolan manages to navigate his characters through the numerous chambers and ante- chambers of the human mind convincingly enough but he fails to make the exercise supremely meaningful. Lee Smith’s editing has it’s top-class moments – the four parallel action tracks coming up late in the second half led to a spectacular perception altering climax.

DOP Wally Pfister and production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas fashion visions shot across four continents, with arresting effects. The fight choreography is also quite engaging. While Di Caprio’s seriousness assists believability it’s Marion Cotillard as Mal, Cobb’s departed wife, who draws you in deeper into the vortex of the unfathomable.

This is an elaborately engineered concept movie. Nolan’s ‘Inception’ is fuzzily clever  and draws you into it’s bleary realms with great ease but it’s drawn out procedural intrigue tires out the imagination and makes the extremely thrilling  visual splendour on show, appear flaky and lacking in solidity and crunch!