Inception

OPENING: 07/16/2010

STUDIO: Warner Bros.

RUN TIME: 148 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Your Mind is the Scene of the Crime

Opening Statement
After achieving remarkable success both critically and financially with The Dark Knight, Director Christopher Nolan has taken a break from Batman to pursue his own original idea: Inception, based on a script that Nolan developed for over a decade. The result is a film that sees Nolan reaching dizzying heights as an artist; an intelligent, original serving of thunderous elegance that towers over the rest of the summer movie crop like a giant in Lilluput.

Facts of the Case
In order to accept the film, you must accept its basic conceit: that advanced technology has been developed which allows people to share dream experiences together. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed) is a man who has used this technology for selfish means, as he’s a specialist in entering the dreams of others and extracting valuable secrets from them. This is a complex and challenging art that requires significant planning and assistance.

However, Dom’s newest client (Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai) isn’t interested in the extraction of ideas. He wants to know if inception (the planting of an idea into another person’s mind through dreams) is possible. Dom insists that such a thing would be very difficult, but that it could be done. Without further ado, he hires a team of experts (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Dileep Rao and Tom Hardy) in various aspects of dream invasion to assist him in the mission. Their target is the son (Cillian Murphy, Batman Begins) of a dying CEO, and they must convince him to make a particular decision upon his father’s death.

The Evidence
There are a lot of additional nuances to that plot that I haven’t really gotten into, but that’s because it would take an inordinate amount of time to explain the many complications at work in the essentially simple framework of this story. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen another movie that had to devote the vast majority of its running time to explaining itself. Inception is not about what happens but how it happens, and Nolan essentially uses the film as a canvas for unraveling his meticulously constructed ideas. If that sounds dull, be assured that nothing could be further from the truth. Inception is thrilling both intellectually and otherwise, with layers of intelligent excitement poured on top of a moving emotional foundation.

Nolan is a filmmaker who pays close attention to detail and takes great care in the construction of his films. As such, his dreamscapes are not free-flowing fantasy worlds full of random whimsy but rather specifically-organized layouts with precise rules and regulations that govern them. There are some who might suggest that dreams deserve to be treated as something more unpredictable and unruly, but I found Nolan’s carefully organized menace nothing short of fascinating. By giving dreams a set of complex ground rules, Nolan creates a very stable foundation on which to build his wild architecture. To witness the unbending logic which is dictating the frenzied action as the film barrels into its third act is unbelievably satisfying and exciting.

Inception is bursting at the seams with ideas, one of which is that it is possible to have dreams within dreams… and dreams within dreams within dreams, too. However, there is a difference in the perception of time from level to level. When you’re dreaming, time moves slower than it would in real life. Time moves even slower in the level below that, and so on. So, what feels like 10 seconds on the first level of dreaming feels like an hour on the third level. This idea fuels a magnificent sequence in which various members of the team are carrying out different tasks on each of the levels, synchronizing their efforts through the use of an Edith Piaf song set to go off at a specific point. This could have been a mess, but Nolan and editor Lee Smith (this year’s Oscar winner, I think) present the whole affair with an almost musical pacing and unwavering clarity (the actual music helps too, as Hans Zimmer turns in an effectively stormy score).

The emotional core of the film is largely found in the performance of Leonardo DiCaprio, who turns in a performance eerily similar to his work in Shutter Island. Without wanting to spoil either film, let it be said that both films feature remarkable similarities both in terms of the subject matter and in the back stories of the lead characters. DiCaprio is every bit as good here as he was in Scorsese’s film, proving once again just how much he has grown as an actor. He’s ably supported by a game supporting cast, with Ellen Page standing out as a young woman who persists in attempting to understand what secrets Dom Cobb has buried away. Marion Cotillard (Public Enemies) also pulls off a tricky performance as Cobb’s wife, who quite literally haunts his dreams on a regular basis. Everyone does good work and most of the significant characters are given a chance to shine at some point (though Michael Caine has roughly two minutes of screen time), but most of the major requirements in terms of acting are on DiCaprio’s shoulders. Fortunately, he’s now fully capable of carrying that weight.

Closing Statement
If I have one concern/complaint with the film, it’s that Inception is so wrapped up in its ideas that it doesn’t really take enough time to ponder the ethics of those ideas. What Dom Cobb and his gang are engaged in is essentially a form of mental rape. This activity deserves some serious discussion and debate, but that’s brushed off pretty quickly (Nolan is more concerned about the effects these activities have on the perpetrators than the victims). Of course any half-perceptive viewer will recognize these things on their own, but I can’t help but wish a stronger opposing point-of-view had been represented in the film.

Even so, that’s a small complaint about a film that I could continue praising for quite some time. Instead, I’ll simply tell you that Inception is an absorbing ride from it’s unusual opening scene to its masterful closing shot (a final image rivaled only this year by the closing frames of The Ghost Writer), and that it’s one of the year’s best films. See it without hesitation.

The Verdict

10/10

Whip It

OPENING: 10/02/2009

STUDIO: Fox Searchlight

RUN TIME: 111 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Be your own hero.

Opening Statement
Finally, for a genuine dose of warmth and joy you could do a lot worse than Whip It, Drew Barrymore’s exceptional directorial debut.

The Case
Ellen Paige stars as Bliss Cavender, a 17-year-old girl living in a small Texas town. Her somewhat overbearing mother (Marcia Gay Harden) more or less forces Bliss to participate in a series of beauty pageants, but she doesn’t find much joy in such affairs. One day, Bliss happens to see a group of women from a local roller derby team, and finds them (and their sport) fascinating. She tries out for the local women’s league, makes the team, and makes some colorful new friends. However, it’s going to be challenging to maintain her new passion without her parents catching on.

Whip It goes more or less where you expect it to in most instances, proving to be yet another sports film that leans on a reliable formula (underdog works hard, engages in training montages, suffers disappointments, ultimately makes it to The Big Game). Even so, Barrymore’s film is an exceptional viewing experience, offering a generous dose of thoughtfulness and realism that lends depth to what could have been a dull, by-the-numbers experience. It also helps that the casting is spot-on, from the distinct females who make up the roller derby league (Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Eve, Zoe Bell, Barrymore herself) and the disheveled gentlemen lingering around the proceedings (Jimmy Fallon, Carlo Alban, Andrew Wilson), to Bliss’ conservative but nuanced parents (Harden and Daniel Stern). However, the movie belongs to star Ellen Paige, who demonstrates yet another side of her talent playing a character of both courage and fragility. Paige expertly handles a variety of complicated emotional scenes. Affecting, award-worthy stuff, Whip It is what you’d expect and much more.


The Verdict
8/10

Forest Whitaker pays penance for some hellish past life by playing opposite Keanu Reeves as a rogue LAPD officer trying to take down the corruption around him in STREET KINGS. Seriously? One look at the trailer will show K-Nu is way out of his league on this one. And who did Hugh Laurie piss off to be condemned to this project? If you’re the least bit interested, catch it quick because it’ll be making its way to DVD real soon.

Studio: Fox Searchlight
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The ’80s horror “re-imagining” craze continues as television director Nelson McCormick channels television director Paul Lynch for PROM NIGHT. The storyline has been changed, but the sadistic killer’s carnage remains the same. Brittany Snow, Ming-Na, and the former Mr. Christina Applegate star. If you’re looking for recreational blood and guts this weekend, this is the film for you.

Studio: Screen Gems
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Ellen Page’s follow-up to Juno finds her side by side with Dennis Quaid (who’s starting to look and sound a lot like Harrison Ford) and Thomas Hayden Church in SMART PEOPLE. Oh yeah, and Carrie Bradshaw shows up as a doctor… like she had time to attend med school in between breaks from sex and shopping? Come on. If you haven’t guessed, this is the weekend’s counter programming.

Studio: Miramax
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Our “under the radar” film of the week is KILLSHOT, which stars Diane Lane, Rosario Dawson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Thomas Jane, and Mickey Rourke (who someone must have dragged away from a Santa Monica bar for filming). It’s a lovely little Elmore Leonard tale about the ineffectiveness of the Witness Protection Program when there’s a price on your head and an assassin looking to collect. From John Madden, the director of Ethan Frome and Shakespeare in Love. Think he’s trying to extend his range? BTW, the film was shot in 2006 and has been floating around in Weinstein Bros. limbo ever since.

Studio: MGM
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