Movie Review: "Inception"

Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is a film brimming with brilliance, humming with energy and so packed with ideas that it’s probably impossible to compose a judgment on it after only one viewing.

Nolan, best known as the director of “The Dark Knight,” gained notoriety in Hollywood circles 10 years ago with “Memento,” the twisty noir about a man with short-term memory loss trying to solve his wife’s murder. The film still stands as one of its decade’s best, a brilliantly woven crime drama told through a narrative structure that shifts backwards, forwards and sideways as it heads to its devastating conclusion.

“Inception” makes “Memento” seem as straightforward and predictable as an episode of “Two and a Half Men.”

Once again, Nolan returns to the world of the mind, in a science fiction thriller about dream thieves, led by Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio). Along with his right-hand man Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Cobb recruits Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architect who designs elaborate worlds for the dreamer to get lost in, a “forger” named Eames (Tom Hardy) who impersonates people in the mark’s subconscious and Yusuf (Dileep Rao), adept at mixing sedatives powerful enough to knock people into sleeps so deep that if they die within a dream, instead of waking up they’ll be lost in a limbo-like coma.

Cobb is hunted by agencies around the world for his illegal activities, which involve breaking into people’s dreams and stealing their ideas. When one theft goes awry, however, the subject (Ken Watanabe) chooses not to get revenge but instead proposes one last job: Cobb is to break into a young business executive’s mind and, instead of stealing an idea, plant one. The team balks, saying that inception cannot be accomplished, as the mind violently rejects any foreign ideas. Cobb, spurred by the promise of seeing his children again, takes the job. He may, however, not be in the right frame of mind (literally) for this project, as he’s hounded by guilty memories of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) and their two children.

With that, I will lay low on plot details, except to say that “labyrinthine” is too weak a word for Nolan’s story. In “Inception,” cities fold in on themselves, dreams layer upon and crash in on each other and time shifts with each level of reality. In the same space of time the characters may be in different levels of reality, on different continents, involved in car chases, kung fu fights and James Bond-style fortress assaults all at once. We’re never quit sure of what’s real, what’s a dream or when and where we are—Nolan doesn’t stagger the chronology as with “Memento” but he trusts his audience enough to understand and keep up with the story he’s telling, even as its characters shift through layers of consciousness and reality.

After dropping the audience into the dream world in the opening sequence, though, Nolan does apply the brakes to give a primer on the film’s rules. He’s light on the details of how dream sharing technology works and instead uses Ariadne’s initiation to give us a lesson on how dreams are created, how they function and how the subconscious defends itself against intruders. By the time Ariadne’s subconscious causes Paris to explode in slow motion glory, we’re prepped enough to follow the film.

The film bursts with ideas but is never weighed down by its own brilliance. The plot is complex and puzzling and may take two or three viewings to understand every detail and thread, but Nolan attaches the story to the heist film formula so that audiences can follow the story’s main points even if they can’t wrap their minds around the plot’s intricacies. “Inception” dresses deep ideas up in genre clothing so that even if audiences have a hard time grasping what level of reality the film is currently in, they still understand the dangers immediately facing Cobb and his team in the form of subconscious assassins as they try to reach their goal of planting the idea in the subject’s mind.

The film pulsates with energy and visual brilliance. One of the complaints some critics had over Nolan’s work on his Batman films was that he couldn’t film a coherent action sequence. While I disagree, I think even the naysayers will be impressed with the drive and adrenaline he puts into each set piece, particularly in the last 45 minutes as realities threaten to collapse, threats pile up and the film hurtles towards its conclusion in a blaze of gravity-defying fistfights, bone-crunching car chases and an assault on a fortress clearly inspired by James Bond. And that’s not including the crumbling cities, flooding hotels and exploding elevators that punctuate the finale. If all the bullets and bombs were simply Hollywood filler, it would ring hollow but Nolan ties everything together so logically into the plot and makes it so easy to follow that every set piece pins viewers to their seats in anticipation. Like “The Matrix,” to which this film will inevitably be compared, “Inception” mixes big ideas and big events so perfectly that the film l feels like nothing that has come before it.

Unlike “The Matrix,” however, Nolan packs “Inception” with an emotional thread to keep audiences from being overburdened with tech talk and science fiction. DiCaprio plays a man not unlike his character in this year’s “Shutter Island,” haunted by a woman and ravaged by guilt. Cobb blames himself for his wife’s death and has turned in on himself so harshly that she literally stalks him in his dreams, threatening to undo his hard work and keep him with her. There’s a portion of Cobb that may be willing to stay in his dreams, where he can hold his wife again and avoid the pain of the real world. DiCaprio again shows that he one of the most versatile actors working today. He doesn’t play the same notes as in Scorsese’s thriller, but finds new depths of angst and guilt, creating a character well aware that he’s chasing an illusion, but also knows he might prefer that illusion to reality.

The rest of the cast is engaging as well, with Hardy and Levitt in particular supplying necessary energy and humor throughout the proceedings. Cillian Murphy provides just the right amounts of intrigue and earnestness as the team’s mark and Nolan regular Michael Caine shows up in a brief role as Cobb’s father-in-law to lend some class to the proceedings. Only Page feels slightly out of her element, not as in tune with the rest of the cast but that ultimately works in her favor because, as an outsider, Ariadne serves as the audience surrogate. Through her, we are introduced to this world.

I’ve come to the end of this review and I feel I’m just scratching the surface of a film that begs multiple looks. And that’s okay—with its narrative twists, reality-bending concepts and incredible set pieces, “Inception’s” surface is pretty darn great, alive in a way most films aren’t. But what’s even better is the feeling it gives that, like any good dream, there’s more to discover.

I have a feeling this is a film that will be argued over and studied by science fiction lovers and movie geeks for ages—there are surely hidden themes and symbols to uncover, character motives to question and even the film’s premise to debate over. And knowing that a movie can be that entertaining and that intriguing is what makes “Inception” one of this year’s best films.

Movie Review: "Shutter Island"

Originally published in the 02/21/10 version of The Source. . .

Much like its asylum setting, Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" is a beautifully constructed, exquisitely detailed labyrinth of dark twists, dead ends and buried secrets. It may creak, groan and threaten to topple over, but in the end it succeeds in concealing its mysteries inside a haunting, beautiful structure.

The film is a pastiche of Hitchcockian thriller, film noir and psychological horror that burrows under our skin even when its plot threads don't always quite connect. Adapting a best-selling novel by Dennis Lehane ("Mystic River," "Gone Baby Gone"), Scorsese dips his toes into the horror genre, but don't mistake it for slumming: what seems on the surface to be a standard locked-room mystery is, in reality, a poetic and disturbing look at insanity, guilt and fear.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshall from Boston working with new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) to find a patient who goes missing on Shutter Island in 1954. The patient, Rachel Solando, was put there after murdering her own children and seems to have disappeared into thin air. That's pretty hard to do, considering that Shutter Island is a heavily fortified mental hospital for the criminally insane, surrounded by ominous bluffs and with electric wire surrounding the campus's creaky, dark buildings.

Teddy and Chuck arrive just as a hurricane is bearing down on the island, and Scorsese uses rumbling thunder and howling wind to underscore the constant feeling of dread and doom. But things get even darker when out of the weather, as everyone at the hospital seems to be hiding something. The orderlies and nurses stare oddly at Teddy and Chuck, the warden keeps just a little too close, and even the seemingly gentle and easy-going psychiatrist Dr. Crawley (Ben Kingsley) seems to be keeping secrets behind his warm smile. And then there's Max Von Sydow as a German psychologist who seems eager to provoke the detectives and may have dark secrets of his own.

DiCaprio , in his fourth outing with Scorsese, once again finds new notes to play as Teddy. A hard-boiled detective whose wife was killed in an arson fire, he has no sympathy for murderers. He talks tough and scoffs at Crawley's belief that patients must be treated with respect and dignity if rehabilitation is possible. But Teddy has his own demons - he suffers from migraines and, in nightmares, he relives his involvement in the liberation of concentration camps and speaks to the ghost of his wife (Michelle Williams) before she dissolves into ash. Once Rachel Solando's crime is mentioned, Teddy adds visions of dead children to his nightmares. Teddy is a man haunted, and Shutter Island seems more than happy to keep waking the dead.

Scorsese, possibly the most accomplished American director, has carefully assembled a cast of familiar, talented actors whose presence establishes a shorthand with the audience. Ruffalo is the trusty sidekick, Kingsley the calm mentor who may have sinister motives, Patricia Clarkson shows up later to give Teddy some no-nonsense advice and Sydow's very presence always carries a sinister weight. Scorsese wisely lets these actors play familiar notes, but later asks us if we can actually believe anything they've said.

I have to tiptoe lightly here, because the film's endgame will be the subject of much debate. Some will complain that the final twists come out of nowhere, but the truth is that Scorsese has hidden clues to the big reveal throughout the film and I believe a second viewing will actually improve the movie for many. Closely watch the way a character handles a gun, reaction shots that seem innocuous at first or dialogue that, when heard again, may carry a double meaning. Many may not like the dark places the film finds, but it is very apparent that this is the ending the film was building to the entire time.

Still, I suspect that upon closer inspection, not everything will hold up 100 percent. The plot creaks and twists and sometimes seems in danger of unraveling. In retrospect, there are elements of it that require a heavy suspension of disbelief. Then again, how much we second-guess depends on how much we believe the characters when all is revealed.

But Scorsese is not interested in simply putting together a puzzle box. The plot is simply a way for the director to experiment with genre, and delve into his favorite themes of guilt and redemption. He's less interested in "what happened" than in "how it feels." Saturating the film in deep, dark colors and working with an ominous, doom-inspiring soundtrack, Scorsese allows "Shutter Island" to tap into viewers' psyches, haunting them without resorting to explicit violence or jump scares. The film is, in a way, a haunted house story and Shutter Island, with its endless corridors, leaky ceilings and dank cells, is one of the creepiest settings this side of "The Shining." Scorsese's imagery here is nightmarish and yet beautifully grotesque. Teddy's nightmares are terrifying not because of what they show, but because of how they make Teddy feel. There are disturbing and horrifying images put on display, and yet they never feel gratuitous or cheap, as Scorsese films even the most disturbing scenes with the intention of delving into the deeper truths behind them, finding visual poetry in the death camps of Dachau or in a soaking wet child asking Teddy to save her. There's a sadness and grief to the horror created not only by Scorsese's wonderful eye but DiCaprio's powerful performance. The film's final passages could have elicited a clever laugh, but watch them closely; there's a feeling of sorrow and tragedy to them. The film's final words carry a loaded weight and several tragic implications.

"Shutter Island" is a clever mystery whose plot engages us even as we realize its preposterousness. The story, even in novel form, was pure pulp. What Scorsese has done is add a very human layer to this tale and, by doing that, made a film that shows us that what's outside our minds is the least of what we have to fear.