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Inception: Dream A Little Dream In Me

I’m going to win this Dreidel game if it’s the last thing I ever do.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Everyone fears the sophomore curse, when you break out of the gate in any type of popular media with something so unique, so gripping and so monumentally accepted by the ravenous public that you set the bar high into the stratosphere, making it impossible for your second creative effort to even bask in the reflection of that initial glory. It frightens each and every person stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight, but there is a misconception lingering making people feel safe after they are past their second credit. The cold, hard fact is each and every time you release something out to the public it is another audition to the world. If your newest effort becomes known as the best of your career, congratulations my friend, welcome back to the curse. It’s been right here waiting for you. Christopher Nolan felt the sting of the curse after his breakout indie darling, Memento, which he followed with a poorly timed remake of the chilly psychological thriller, Insomnia. Yet Nolan fought onward and grabbed hold of the frayed cape of the Batman franchise and resurfaced with a much more dark and gritty take on the legendary crusader in Batman Begins. This inevitably led to his crowning achievement in the comic book sequel, The Dark Knight, where the world witnessed the true beauty of a director and actor, in Heath Ledger, creating something that will be remembered and talked about for generations. As the accolades for The Dark Knight poured in, Nolan found himself right back in the lap of the curse, plotting his escape, scanning the horizons for a safe way out. Turns out, he found his escape not by looking outside, but by turning in.

Inception is the name given to a procedure where a person with incredibly specific skills and equipment can enter someone else’s dreams and gently plant the seed of an idea, which would then flourish and grow in that person naturally, culminating in the subject doing exactly what you wanted them to. Most believe it can’t be done, but one man, Cobb, says it is not just possible, but he’s done it before. Hired for one last job, Cobb builds a team of people to help him complete his mission and try to win his ticket home to his children.

The out and out winner here is the writing. While the directing and acting, which will be mentioned later, are both up to par, the writing of such an intricate, delicate and verbose script is an achievement worth high recognition. People are already talking Oscar race for this film, and while I might be on the fence right now in the Best Picture category (we still have quite a few months to go people), in the arena of Best Original Screenplay, this should be a shoe-in. Nolan is truly at his best when dealing with fragmented and fractured realities, achieving a tender balance between intrigue and confusion that makes the audience think, but not feel stupid if they all come up with different answers at the end. As for the ending, I’ll leave that for later, loudly hidden behind the spoiler warnings.

Moving onto the acting, Leonardo DiCaprio, who played our anti-hero Cobb, once again brims with sheer determination and builds layer upon layer into the role. The only fraction of a flaw in his performance in my eyes is it bordered on being too controlled. At times there felt perfect opportunities to let him fly off the handle or just peel back one more layer, showing his humanity, but the importance of the job and the need for sharp and complete focus kept him tightly wrapped up. Tom Hardy, playing Eames, the wise-cracking master thief of the group, steals many of the scenes not only due to his skill as an actor, but because he provides the only comic relief in the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as Aurthur, brings back a little bit of his steam-train determination and tunnel-vision drive that he perfected in Brick. Overall all the performances were on point, but in the minority there were two people that I felt were under used and under developed, Michael Caine and Ellen Page. Caine is a tremendous actor that felt totally wasted in a partially unexplained cameo part (he’s mentioned as the grandfather to Cobb’s children, but it is never illustrated whether he is Cobb’s father or his stepfather.) As for Page, while they try with one line of dialogue to cover over her rapid acceptance of the world of dreams and being able to control them, she still ends up feeling rushed into the story more as a person to move the plot than a full fledged character.

***SPOLIER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT – DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM***

Now let’s talk about that ending. While I really do enjoy a nice ‘leave ‘em hanging’ closer, I think people are reading way too much into it. Yes, the top was still spinning, and yes the idea was to make you wonder if Cobb is still in a dream at the end of the film, but the theory that the entire movie was all a dream inside Cobb’s mind, showing his own journey to release himself of the guilt of pushing his wife to suicide, well, that just doesn’t sit right with me. The ‘whole dream’ theory robs the movie of all its importance and power and steals all the thunder from the other characters. I prefer to believe the top would have fallen in time; it was just really well balanced.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Nolan is on a hot streak that could see him crowned as one of the greatest directors in our generation, but let’s not pressure him too much, right? Inception is clever, intriguing and everything you want in a psychological drama, even if it draws a little long at the end. Worth seeing, if only for the ensuing discussion you will have immediately after.

What did you think of the ending? Does this top ‘Dark Knight’ for you?

Taken: Neeson Brings the Pain

This girl, she was on ‘Lost’. You’re going to tell me what the hell her character was really doing there. TELL ME!!!

Rating: 9 out of 10

Sometimes it’s good to take a breather after watching a film, really take some time to process what you thought about it. Strolling out of the darkness on Friday night, I was on an adrenaline high from the film I just witnessed. I was already writing the headline in my mind, “First Perfect Score!”, “10 out of 10!”, or “I Got Taken!”, but now that I’ve had a couple days to catch my breath and really mull over the difference between the movie itself and the movie experience, I regretfully say you are going to have to wait a little while longer to hear me rant and rave about my first perfect film. But take heart, Neeson and crew came achingly close and I’m thrilled to give it the credit it deserves.

Taken is a terrifyingly simple story: Overprotective Dad find out his young and virginal daughter has been kidnapped. Of course, most fathers are going to do everything they can to get their daughter back, but in this case, “everything he can” encompasses a lot more than the usual retiree father. Calling on skills from his previous job as a “preventer” for the government, the father races off to Paris to follow his daughter’s trail and pick apart anyone and everyone who either stands in his way or had anything to do with the crime. It’s a prime example of a man on a mission and nothing in the world is going to stop him.

Simple story, right? So what could possibly make it so good or so much better than all the other ‘action/spy/thriller’ films we’ve seen in recent years? First off, Liam Neeson, who plays the incredibly dangerous dad, Bryan Mills, already brings a level of talent and pathos to the character we would have lost with a less skilled actor. Neeson is no stranger to playing undeterred heroes, in such films as Michael Collins, Rob Roy and even Schindler’s List. These were all men who were willing to step way over the line in the fight for what they believed in. Now you mix that determination with the moral ambivalence of another of Neeson’s previous creations, Darkman, and you get our paternal savior from Taken. Neeson is an unstoppable juggernaut, once set in motion he is unswerving in his determination to achieve his goal. The hero’s code has no place in the world of this character and brings a fresh feel to what normally would have been a very standard role. Picture Jason Bourne without a conscience and you’ll be right on the money. The care and ethical treatment of others is void from his actions, even those who would be considered his friends. Another reason why I liked this character so much is it reminded me of an adult version of Brick, another film with a lead character who steamrolls over everyone in his path. (If I had been reviewing film back then, Brick would have undoubtedly received a perfect score. If you haven’t seen it yet, make it a priority.) Outside of Neeson’s stoic violence, the only other actor worth mentioning is Maggie Grace, who plays Kim, the kidnapped daughter. She amazingly looks the part, even though her real age is far above the seventeen she plays in the film, but there were a few moments where she regressed a little too far, playing closer to fifteen or even thirteen. I can’t be sure whether it was a bad choice on the director, actor or if they were trying for a subliminal critique of how sheltered the character was from the real world, but either way, it just came off odd.

Continuing it’s reasons for success, Taken is also written extremely well, with a solid sense of pace and a keen eye towards the importance of development when needed. Most spy movies jump right into the espionage and a gunfight will erupt within minutes of the opening credits, but the inciting incident, the kidnapping, doesn’t actually come for at least twenty minutes. This gives the audience plenty of time to get to know daddy Mills and his daughter Kim, what their relationship is like and by the time she disappears, Mills has already had one chance to show off his skills, so the audience has a logical basis for all the damage he is about to incur on the villains. That brings up another particularly interesting twist in screenwriting; there is no antagonist character here. No villain which we can all attach our hate and anger to, the antagonist of the film is the crime itself and the society that promotes it. Each time a face or a name is revealed to be the person Mills is after, he finds them and dispatches them before anyone gets a chance to really attach anything to them. Normally this would be a failure in the writing, but screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen achieve a lofty switch by making this movie all about the crime itself, instead of a single person. This writing duo is not unfamiliar with the action/thriller landscape, having penned the Transporter series, along with The Fifth Element, Kiss of the Dragon and Leon (the last one was Besson alone), so it doesn’t come as a big surprise that Taken has such a rich underbelly of character and subtext usually unfound in this genre.

Recommendation: A pulse pounding thriller with a slow burn to begin, this is a rare find in the cinematic world. There are moments in this film you will definitely not see coming and those alone make it worth a viewing, whether in the theater or at home. Neeson truly succeeds in making your first meeting with your girlfriend’s dad scary once more.
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