Inception

For me, Inception is the most original film of the decade. The film requires a hell lot of concentration to understand the theme of the movie, i.e The Lucid Dream Concept. Lucid Dreams are such that the person who is dreaming knows that he is dreaming and is able to influence it. Christopher Nolan takes this concept, improvises it to make the dreams to be shared among multiple people dreaming nearby on multiple levels (meaning dreams within dreams within dreams and so on...) whilst applying it to a heist story.

Leonardo De Caprio,the Extractor, is a master thief in stealing people's ideas while they are dreaming. He is superbly supported by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who supervises the theft while Leo is at work with the help of a Chemist who provides sedatives to remain 'active' at the subconscious level. As usual, while working on a billionaire businessman,Saito (Ken Watanabe), Leo is over-powered by him and strikes a deal to 'incept' one idea, this time unlike extraction, into the rival multi-billionaire, Cillian Murphy's mind. In return, Saito would make exactly one fone call and clear him of all charges against him so that he could go to his children in US.

Leo accepts the challenge and along with Joseph, assembles a best possible team in Tom Hardy, the forger, who could morph into any personality in dream state, in Dileep Rao, the Chemist to assist in sedatives for multiple dream levels, in Ellen Page, the architect, who could design paradoxes and mazes in the multi-layed round trips. One important thing which helps them in differenciating the dream from reality is a Totem (for Leo, it's the metal top).

The stage is set, the venue (airline) is booked and the target is hooked. Except for one aspect. Leo is unstable emotionally.Courtesy, his wife, Mal (Marion Cottilard), the Shade. Every time, Leo is working inside the shared dream of his client, Mal malfunctions the whole mission. He is not able to get rid of her coz she is in his deepest memories and to top it, she is DEAD. The movie needs to be watched to reason out her death.

Nolan follows a fairly linear and structural storyline so that viewer is not confused with the already twisted and esoteric concept. It really takes a great deal of imagination to implement the multi layed dream sequences (here, to give out the spoiler, 4 levels are attempted) adding a good dose of action sequences and Nolan succeeds in leaps and bounds.

Never boring, the movie keeps us engaged right from the first frame. Acting is first rate. I especially liked, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Awesome background score, superb cinematography , clean cut editing, mind-bending (also, neck-bending, if you must) action pieces and cool special effects . However, the most important stand out factor is the writing by Nolan. The man deserves all the praises and accolades coming his way for realising such a concept in a fairly simple way!

However, in the end, when Leo finally meets his children (who appear constantly throughout the movie in his dreams without showing faces), in real world, they appear to be wearing same clothes as in his many dream escapades and  his Totem (metal top, his 'kick' to real world, kind of an alarm) doesn't wobble (wobbling means reality, constant spinning means in dream state) , which I am not sure if it is still a dream or reality. Need to watch again!

Best Dialogue: Who's subconscious are we in now?!

Rating: 5 stars

P.S: On a seriously lighter note, Bollywood has already attempted such a concept in the last decade itself. Ever heard of the 'Mere Khwaaboan Main Jo Aaye' song from DDLJ?!!! Shah Rukh Khan must be a happy man! hehehe...