Eye Candy #432 - "Inception"

Inception:  I enjoy movies that get me thinking long after they are over.    "Inception" is such a film.   In the world of corporate espionage, there are operatives who can infiltrate your dreams and steal your secrets.  This is called 'extraction'.  But the converse also exists - the ability to place ideas into someone’s head to help steer their behavior.  This is the much riskier 'inception'.  Leonardo Dicaprio is Cobb, who leads a team of such thieves, all of whom have different skills like cons in a grift.  They are played by Ellen Page, Dileep Rao, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, and Tom Hardy, who threatens to steal every scene he's in.  They take an 'inception' job targeting the son and heir (Cillian Murphy) of a dying energy magnate (Pete Postelthwaite) at the behest of the mysterious Saito (Ken Watanabe).   The heist involves establishing various levels of dreams within dreams within dreams, to con the mark into getting (or in this case, taking) what they want.  The problem is Cobb, who has been in this game longer than anyone, has become their worst liability.  Technically above par all the way around, from the score on up.  Nothing I can find fault with.  Acting is solid as can be.   And in a film all about timing, the pacing of the film is superb.  I mean, how many movies can have a car chase, a mountaintop gunfight, and a Matrix-y hotel hallway brawl all staged simultaneously?   Well, you get that here.  It's funny to say, but this is a brisk 2 hours and 22 minutes here, and doesn't really show signs of slowing down until the last 15-20 minutes (which could afford to be tightened up a bit).  It's a feast for the eyes, sure, but the action is balanced out by the emotional arc of Cobb's personal journey and the philosophical and intellectual implications of what they are doing as they navigate the various levels of dream strata.  Director Christopher Nolan, who is as close to a "sure thing" when it comes to his output, has crafted a film wholly different from his previous body of work, that is engrossing, stimulating, and even worth debating.  Woodchuck sez, "Check it out."