Looper

In the year 2044, Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a specialized hitman, or "Looper." He waits at certain spot where his victim will materialize in front of him, tied up with a bag over his head, to be dispatched by Joe's shotgun or "Blunderbuss." and then disposed of. The body disposal is the important part, since Joe is working for gangsters thirty years in his own future (2074) where sophisticated tracking makes it impossible to make a body disappear. Luckily for the mob, in 2074, time travel has been discovered, although it was almost instantly outlawed and carries severe penalties. Being the perfect method to get rid of enemies, and not hung up on the illegality, the mob has taken over time travel exclusively, although they do it in strict secrecy. To maintain that secrecy, Looper's sometimes have to get rid of their older selves, when the 2074 bosses deem them a threat. A Looper killing his future self, is called "closing the loop" for obvious reasons, and your self assassination is your last job, carrying a big payday and retirement.

We're introduced to Joe on an average day. He kills a guy, collects his pay (silver bars strapped to his hooded victim.) incinerates the body, and then hits the town. We see that Joe has a drug problem, in this case taken in the eyes, with an eye dropper. In Joe's present, the haves and have nots have embraced their differences, making "vagrants" public enemy number one. There have also been incidents of people developing telekinesis, although rather than producing superhero's, it's limited to guys trying to impress woman by floating quarters, which Joe calls "tacky." Joe doesn't care much about class warfare, he has his own crowd, which includes his favorite prostitute, Suzie (Piper Perabo.) He hangs out with other Loopers and when he isn't on the job, it's a constant party.

A bump in his lifestyle happens pretty quickly though, when it seems the big boss in the future, known only as "The Rainmaker." is closing everybody's loops. This is first presented as a happy occasion, Joe informs us that most Loopers aren't "forward thinking." and having 30 years to spend your money no doubt seems like a good thing at the time. Joe is a bit more forward thinking than most, trying to learn French and saving half of all his pay days for his eventual retirement to France.

Except for his friend Seth (Paul Dano) who shows up late one night at Joe's window. He tells Joe that he recognized his future self, from a tune he was whistling and taking advantage of his hesitation, Seth's future self got away. Joe reluctantly hides Seth in his floor vault, as the mob arrives looking for him. Joe is escorted to the present day mob boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels) who was   sent from the future long ago to coordinate everything. Abe knows that Joe is helping Seth, but rather than resort to torture, he tells him "I'm just going to talk a little bit." We learn that it was Abe that recruited Joe, his youngest Looper yet. At the time Joe was a vagrant kid on his own, but Abe tells him "I gave you something that was your own." Abe reveals that he knows Joe very well. He gives Joe three choices, he can die, give up his savings or call the cops. He also advises Joe to go to China rather than France. Joe's no hero, he turns Seth in. He quickly finds himself in the same dilemma however. His future self (Bruce Willis) arrives at the appointed place without a hood, making Joe hesitate a moment, all his future self needs to turn the tables.

We witness young Joe's transformation into older Joe. The specialized hitman becomes a full on gangster over the years, becomes very dangerous and then the right woman "saves his life." and settles him down. It's quickly discovered that young Joe, has failed to close his loop, and Abe's men, headed up by the bumbling Kid Blue (Noah Segan) make finding him priority one. He knows they won't kill him as that could affect the time stream somehow, but they are well aware, that taking a limb off the younger version can make the older one easier to find. With some assistance from his older self he evades capture. Younger Joe arranges a meeting with himself and learns that the Rainmaker cost older Joe the woman he loved, and in the past he has an opportunity to make this right by finding the rainmaker when he's a kid and making sure he doesn't grow up. Older Joe. However, even in the future, nobody knows anything about the Rainmaker, only that he came out of nowhere and assumed control of all the crime families in no time all, all by himself, a seemingly impossible task. Older Joe has three possible addresses, and three possible kids.

Younger Joe picks one of the addresses and camps out, knowing that his older self will come there eventually. The address he picks belongs to a single Mother, Sara (Emily Blunt) who is raising her son, Cid (Pierce Gagnon) He lets her in on what's happening and they develop a working relationship, based on the idea that he'll help protect them. Cid turns out to be a gifted child in many ways, and Joe can't help but bond with the both of them. It's only a matter of time however, before Abe's men, Sara and Cid, and both Joe's have their confrontation.

Looper keeps the time travel simple. As Older Joe points out, figuring out all the rules of time travel can give you a headache and usually leads to making diagrams on tables with straws. Time travel here is a one way proposition, and older Joe's memory is fuzzy when younger Joe is in action, becoming clearer, every time young Joe does something. Older Joe is visiting his own past, and the only tragedy he cares about has already happened. This gives us a good chance to look at the old "kill Hitler as a child" time travel question. Since Joe doesn't pretend to be noble or heroic his answer is pretty clear. If killing a few kids will keep his wife from getting killed, he's absolutely going to do just that. The "Kill Hitler" problem has been asked many times before, most memorably in a Twilight Zone episode, where a woman traveled back to kill Hitler and succeeded, not realizing that Hitler's nanny would replace the baby with a similar one destined to be the Hitler we know. Limited perspective is certainly a problem it wouldn't hurt to be careful about.

Of course Old Joe isn't happy about it, but Willis is very good at playing an unstoppable guy doing things he doesn't necessarily enjoy doing, but has to. He even knows that two of the three kids are totally innocent, but that doesn't compare with his own tragedy, a woman saved his worthless life, he got her killed, but has a second chance.  He doesn't see any choice there at all. How Willis manages to kill kids and still be sympathetic is a mystery to me, but he pulls it off. He's also the best there is at casually shooting buildings full of bad (worse?) guys without breaking a sweat, and he's true to form here.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks a little different, made up to resemble Bruce Willis more closely. He certainly studied Willis too, as his mannerisms and speech patterns coincide with the older actor.  The younger Joe, isn't the dangerous man he would later become yet. He's simply a former vagrant who was given a shotgun and told he could be something more. He's fascinated by his older self, but would gladly kill him for a way back into his old job. He gave up a friend to keep his money. He's more forward thinking than most Loopers but still has a lot to learn. Still, it's easy to believe that the younger guy becomes the older one. All the machinery is there, it just hasn't clicked yet.

Emily Blunt elevates what could have been a standard damsel in distress role into a pivotal one. We learn that her relationship with her son is a lot more complex than you might imagine. She isn't shocked to learn that her son could become a monster one day, but she protects him anyway. She doesn't come from Older Joe's future. In her mind, many things are possible, and she hopes that being there for her son will produce a better future. She's the contrast to older Joe much more than young Joe is. Young Joe is the mediator, although it isn't against his nature to kill the kid himself should he believe that he is a monster. And of course, being an abandoned child, he can relate to the damage losing a parent can cause. Joe from the present could go either way.

As good as all these actors are, the standout is Pierce Gagnon as ten year old Cid. He shows us both the blind rage and the insecurity than can exist in any ten year old. He can be cruel and sincerely sorry within moments of each other. After one particularly bad tantrum, we see his mother pick him up after he raged himself to sleep, and he then tell her he's sorry and give her a hug for all he's worth, and we can't help but believe him. He can be a monster and he can be very sweet. Like most ten year olds he goes back and forth depending on what has happened to him. Certainly young Joe identifies with him a lot, himself a kid who saw a shotgun in his hand as a far better alternative to the life he'd been living.

This is a movie about the things that people are willing to kill and die for, and what gives life meaning. It's hard to choose between causes when they're all, on some level, well meaning motivations. When you have something that's so important you're willing to die for it, it can look like you have no choice at all, especially when life is as grim as it is here. A man puts a gun in your hand to take you off the streets, so you go to work for him. A man comes looking to kill your son, you protect him. The man who took your wife from you and caused untold suffering is in front of you as a child, you get rid of him. Everybody has a good reason, and no one's trying to be the bad guy, but everybody in this scenario can't get what they want, not as long as everyone's a victim of their own circumstances and willing to defend their present, and "something of their own." to the death.

Rian Johnson gives us an exciting story that satisfies (at least to me) all the problems attached as soon as you start using time travel. Although the sci fi set up allows some futuristic elements, this isn't A Blade Runner kind of future, rather a world like our own only amplified at certain points, both good and bad. There is more  advanced technology, but fewer people have it, as the poor are plentiful, and now labelled "vagrants." a step or two removed from feral cats. But still, the mob uses guns that hold bullets and time travel machines are the pay off to the old gun control arguments, with only criminals using them. In "Looper" however grim the future looks, the past is not a place that many people want to go, but rather something everyone tries as hard as they can to forget about. And the future? Well, no reason to hurt yourself rushing there, it's certainly no prize either. Maybe in the present there's something to live for, it typically boils down to "what would I sacrifice for what's mine?" Here, it can take some drastic circumstances to figure that one out clearly.

Inception

After many recommendations and being a big fan of Christopher Nolan, I finally got out to see Inception. I was not in the least disappointed. Nolan is a master at fractured and multi layered storytelling, and in Inception the dreamworld is the perfect place to apply this talent and very possibly what he was working towards with "Following" and "Memento"

While I confess I'm not always a big fan of Leonardo DiCaprio, he has enough solid performances that I'll always give him half a chance. I can find no fault in his performance here. His portrayal of Cobb was convincing throughout and he really seemed perfectly suited for the part.

In the world of Inception, the dream world is much more of a known quantity than in our own world. The military has done extensive research using dreaming, specifically shared dreaming in which one person acts as a host for a dream which others participate in. The military cleverly realizes that it's perfect for combat training as you can be shot or stabbed, and in this world, you wake up when you die. In order to create a somewhat controlled environment, they discover that they can use "architects" who just like it sounds, construct the dream world in the dreamers head. Whatever the architect creates is then filled by the dreamer's subconscious, which includes projections of people to populate the world.

Since the dreaming mind is much faster and infinitely more powerful than the awake mind, an architect can create and perceive their creation almost instantaneously. Cobb is a tremendously gifted architect. However, he doesn't practice building anymore for his own reasons, and can't work in the field in any legal capacity because he's wanted for murder. He therefore turns to "extraction" which is stealing information from someone's mind via their dreams, for corporations. He happens to be the best extractor in the business as well as a gifted dream architect.

At the opening of the movie, we see Cobb washed up on a shore looking ragged. Barely conscious for a moment he glimpses two children with his backs to him, before collapsing into the sand again. He's poked by someone who finds a gun tucked in the back of his pants. He's escorted into a room with an old man, who recognizes a small metal top that Cobb has with him as belonging to someone he knew a long time ago, "a young man with radical ideas"  named Cobb.

We then move to Cobb, now well dressed with his associate Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in a room which clearly belongs to Saito (Ken Watanabe) Cobb is trying to convince Saito to enlist his services to protect himself from theft by dream extraction, which Cobb is well equipped to do because he's the best extractor there is. Cobb informs him that to do this, Saito must trust him completely with all of his secrets. He tells Cobb he'll consider it and leaves, which tells Cobb and Arthur that he realizes they are there to steal his secrets. They leave the room and notice a woman, who Arthur is surprised to see, asking Cobb about it. Cobb confronts her and identifies her as Mal (Marion Cotillard.) They clearly have a strong association as Mal asks if he misses her and he clearly does.

Mal and Cobb end up in a room alone. She asks how the kids are and Cobb answers, "I can only imagine." Cobb tells her that he "can't trust her anymore." (which is more significant when we realize what she is) He asks her to stay seated in a chair, (seconds after explaining that he doesn't trust her) which he ties a rope to and uses to hold his weight as he jumps out a window to swing into a lower room from the outside. Partway down, Mal clearly gets up from the chair causing him to fall farther than he'd planned. He nonetheless gets in the room and cracks the safe containing Saito's secrets. He removes an envelope (while holding a duplicate) but before he can leave, Mal and Saito enter the room with guns. Cobb asks Saito if Mal told him. Saito doesn't answer that, but reveals that he knows they are in a dream. We also see Cobb, Arthur, Saito sleeping in a room, hooked to a device with Nash (their architect) watching them, as an angry crowd riots outside.

Back in the dream, Arthur is escorted in as leverage to get the envelope back. Neither Arthur or Cobb is worried, as killing Arthur will just wake him up. Mal points out that pain is still pain and shoots Arthur in the leg. Cobb hands them the duplicate envelope and shoots Arthur in the head to wake him up and escapes the room. Arthur tells Nash to wake up Cobb by tipping his chair over into bathwater, this manifests in the dream as water pouring in all over the dreamworld, establishing that conditions on one plane affect the next. Saito also wakes and he struggles with Cobb, Arthur and Nash.

Cobb is upset that the secrets he got from the vault are incomplete and his employer, Cobol (a massive and shady corporation) won't accept that. Saito mentions that this was a test, which Cobb failed by revealing that they had been in a dream. Cobb states that they'll get the information another way and points his gun at Saito, while throwing him to the ground, mentioning that the place they were sleeping and now in, is Saito's mistress's apartment, which apparently Saito would rather keep secret. Saito laughs on taking a good look at the carpet, which tells him that this is not the place they claim and thus Cobb had pulled them out of the first dream and up into another. He is clearly now more impressed by Cobb, but Saito adds that in his dream, they'll play by his rules. Nash then reveals that it is not Saito's dream they are in but his own. The crowd outside then breaks in and grabs Nash and everything starts blowing up. Arthur, Cobb and Nash wake up on a train, with Saito sleeping next to them. They take off and leave Saito to wake on his own.

Cobb is angry with Nash for missing the details of the carpet in the last dream. He and Arthur make plans to hide out awhile, as Cobol will be unhappy and looking for them now (planning to kill them). They are surprised when Saito shows up in a helicopter with Nash as a hostage. He tells them that Nash turned himself in and sold them out, hoping for mercy. He offers them the chance to kill Nash in retribution but Cobb has no interest, so Saito hands him over to Cobol. Saito tells Cobb that he needs him to do a job and asks if "Inception" is possible. Arthur says it's not, but Cobb claims that it is. Inception is the opposite of extraction, the planting of an idea into someone's mind while they dream, as opposed to stealing it. Cobb claims that he's done it. Saito assures him that if he can do it, he will make Cobb's legal troubles disappear and he can return to the US to be with his kids. When Cobb questions this, Saito asks if he'd rather "die alone, an old man full of regrets" Cobb and Arthur leave to put a new crew together.

The job is to convince Robert Fischer, (Cillian Murphy) the son of Saito's dying competitor, Maurice Fischer, to break up his father's company so that Saito can remain in business. Cobb concludes that for this he'll need a "forger" (who can impersonate others in dreams), a chemist, who knows enough about sedation to make layered dreams possible and a new architect who is as good as he is. He chooses Eames (Tom Hardy) as his forger, although he has to travel into "Cobol's backyard" to get him. Cobol's assassins are soon chasing him and Saito shows up to extricate them both. Eames recommends a good chemist, Yusuf (Dileep Rao) who they pick up next.

Cobb reveals that he is planning to set up a dream in three layers to make sure that the idea is implanted deep enough. Eames and Cobb discuss Inception, Eames revealing that he has also seen it done and the trick is to strip the idea down to it's basics to make it easier for the subject to believe he came up with it on his own. They decide that the focus should be on the son's relationship with his father. Yusuf establishes that the sedative will have to be very strong or the third and bottom level dream will be broken too easily. Saito establishes that he is going with them as it's the only way he can be sure the job is done.

They also decide that "a positive thought always overpowers a negative one" and conclude that rather than convince Fischer to destroy his father's company, they must convince him that "his father wants him to create something of his own" which will result in dismantling his father's company.

Cobb reaches out to his father in law, Miles(Michael Caine) to find a new architect. His father is a professor at a university in Paris and seems to work in a dream related field. Although initially he questions Cobb about being a thief as a profession, he relents when Cobb tells him, that he has a job which will let him come home if he's successful. Miles tells Cobb that he has someone who is better than he (Cobb) is, and introduces him to a young girl named Ariadne. Ariadne doesn't seem to have any knowledge of shared dreaming (which might make you question how Miles knew her talent) but takes to being an architect, according to Cobb, more quickly than anyone he's ever seen.

Cobb and Ariadne are suddenly having lunch at a cafe, when Cobb asks her if she remembers how they got there. When she can't, she realizes she's in a dream. She assumes it's her dream until Cobb tells her that they are in his. She starts experimenting with building, performing amazing feats like folding the city into a cube and constructing a bridge by making two mirrors face each other and breaking them. Cobb warns her that these unrealistic feats will cause his subconscious to attack her "like white blood cells" when it realizes she is an intruder in the dream. This does happen pretty quickly and directly, when Mal shows up and stabs Ariadne, waking her up. This disturbs her severely and she leaves but soon returns, fascinated with what she's learned.  (Cobb also continues to see the children at random intervals, we realize by now from Cobb's dreams that they are his children)

She soon discovers secrets about Cobb by sneaking into one of his dreams without permission. Cobb's dreams are entirely about Mal and his kids. He reveals that he and Mal explored dreams together extensively, due to his insistence that they go deeper and deeper into them. At one point they were lost in a dream for 50 years (dream time which is much less in real time) and Mal wouldn't leave until Cobb convinced her, unable to live in a dream anymore. On returning Mal concluded that the real world wasn't real and killed herself to return to the other world they had shared. In order to coerce Cobb to join her, she had him framed for her death, so that leaving the kids would not be an issue (they also had kids in the dream world, who she believed were the real ones) Cobb also explains that it's helpful to have a "totem" to differentiate between reality and dreams. Mal's was a spinning top (which Cobb apparently carries with him) Arthur tells her that his totem is a weighted die, but won't let her touch it , revealing that it's only significance is that he's the only one that knows it's properties (presumably an architect or dreamer could counter them if they were aware of the unique characteristics)

Cobb accesses his dreams through an elevator which opens to different floors, each being a pivotal moment of his life (or regret) associated with Mal, including the moment where he had to leave his kids, not even sticking around to see their faces before he escaped to avoid charges. He reveals that he is no longer an architect because he can't keep Mal out of his constructs. Mal wants him to stay with her, so sabotages everything he does in order to bring him closer. For this reason he tells Ariadne that she can't tell him the details of the dream levels that she creates. Shocked at how big of a problem this is for Cobb, and concerned that this will prove dangerous for others in the group she insists on going along with them on the mission. Ariadne's training also serves as exposition for the audience. Arthur explains the "kick" process of waking someone from the dream by knocking a leaning chair slightly back to induce a falling feeling. This can be produced in a number of ways all of which make use of the falling sensation.

Cobb figures they'll need ten hours real world time to accomplish the Inception (which is progressively longer with each dream level further down) Saito buys an airline in order to take control of the plane which the subject, Robert Fischer, will be taking soon, as this is their only chance to get him alone for ten hours. Once on the plane, they drug Fischer. The flight attendant is on the payroll to monitor them sleeping.

They enter the first level of the dream, which is a rainy city environment (possibly because Yusuf had to pee)where Fischer believes he's landed. Several of the crew hijack a taxi which they use to abduct Fischer. Ariadne and Cobb use a second car which is almost demolished by a train appearing right through a city street, which Ariadne assumes is Mal interfering. The taxi is soon chased by armed security, and they conclude that Fischer has been well trained against extraction, which they were not aware of. They take refuge in an abandoned warehouse.

Saito was shot in the battle and seriously injured. Cobb reveals that this isn't good, due to the heavy sedative they're using, if he dies in the dream, he won't wake up as the sedative will prevent it (only allowing a kick via loss of equilibrium, a safety Yusuf built in) but instead will get stuck in limbo as his brain won't know where else to send his consciousness. Cobb decides that their only option is to accelerate their plan and hope they can finish before Saito dies in the dream. Fortunately his wounds will be less severe as they descend levels, (but time will also be slower so the injury will have time to increase.)

They enact a hostage situation demanding that Fischer reveal the combination to his father's safe. Fischer isn't consciously aware of a safe (or that he's dreaming) and tells them that he's insured against kidnapping and money won't be a problem. They tell him that his father's right hand man and his own proxy father figure Peter Browning (Tom Berenger) has told them that he knows the combination. Eames imitates Browning and acts as if he's been tortured for days. In this guise he probes Fischer about his relationship with his father, Fischer revealing that they were not at all close, and Fischer feels his father was disappointed in him. Eames (as Browning) mentions a second version of the will which would break up his father's empire, and which is what is supposedly in the safe. Fischer's security closes in on the warehouse and they decide to leave in a van, all but Yusuf descending to the second dream level, while Yusuf drives the van toward a bridge over a river, the jumping off providing the first "kick" (or last if judging from the bottom level) to push them up out of the dream.

Three kicks, one on each level, will all have to be coordinated in order to pull them out through all three levels. Each dreamer stays on his own level to perform the kick.

While Yusuf, still on level 1 driving the van, tries to avoid security, the rest of the crew descends to the next level (Arthur's dream) which is a hotel. On this level Cobb presents himself as Fischer's own security, claiming that someone is trying to extract a secret from him (similiar to the ploy with Saito at the beginning) He convinces Fischer he's dreaming by pointing out the odd things that are happening around him, such as glasses shaking and gravity shifting(results of the van's movements in the first dream)

He steers Fischers's already existing suspicion (due to his own natural suspicion's and Browning's -Eames acting as- clumsy questioning) towards Browning, helping Fischer recall the kidnapping in the last dream and agreeing that Browning set it up. They get ahold of Fischer's projection of Browning who claims that he couldn't let Fischer use the will in the safe to destroy what he'd worked for his whole life. We see gravity shifting more severely as the van is in more trouble and the sleeping bodies are shifting as Yusuf drives wildly.

Fischer agrees to enter the third dream (believing it's a second dream) which he thinks is Browning's (but is actually Eame's) in order to uncover Browning's secrets. Arthur puts them under and waits in the hotel dream to deliver the kick to bring them back.

This is complicated when the van jumps off the bridge into free fall early,(intended to be the kick) eliminating gravity which is essential to induce the loss of balance. They have a secondary kick planned however, the van hitting the water.  Arthur fights off security and improvises a plan. (This also makes for some interesting zero gravity fighting for Arthur) Since he has to deliver the kick at about the same time for everyone to time it right, he ties the sleeping bodies together and hauls them floating in the air to an elevator which he rigs with explosives in order to simulate gravity. He then waits for the van's signal.

At this point,  the van is in the air and will hit the water in 30seconds, which means the second level has several minutes and the third level has about an hour for the kicks to be timed properly in sequence. We flash back up the levels several times to illustrate the urgency, the van steadily moving toward the water.

The third level is an Arctic fortress with heavy security. The team is outfitted with snow gear and sniper rifles. Because the timetable is now rushed, Cobb tells Ariadne she has to inform them of a shortcut to the fortress which Eames had built into her plans. Fischer has to get into the fortress and the vault within, which he believes is the deepest corner of Brooks's mind. He manages to get in safely as the team covers him. Cobb and Ariadne watch from a distance, Cobb with a sniper rifle. Cobb sees Mal appear before Fischer can get to the vault (Ariadne made Cobb aware of the shortcut, thus Mal knew too) Hesitant to shoot her, he lets her shoot Fischer, shooting her only after it's too late.

Cobb, Ariadne, Eames and Saito all enter the fortress. Fischer dies and Cobb assumes that Mal has him in order to lure him to her. Cobb and Ariadne decide to journey to the dream limbo to retrieve him, and for Cobb to face Mal. Eames and Saito stay behind to hold off security. Saito dies just before they leave after Cobb and Saito repeat the phrase from the helicopter, "you're going to die alone, an old man full of regrets" Cobb and Ariadne journey to limbo for Fischer, while Eames is left alone to survive and wait to deliver his  own kick, although he has some advantage as it's his own dream.

On the way down, Cobb reveals to Ariadne, that he performed the Inception on Mal. She never wanted to leave the dreamworld they'd built, believing it was the real world. She had locked away her token (the inert top) in her mental safe to avoid facing this. Cobb, unable to deal with existing in only the dream, secretly found her safe, broke into it and set the top spinning inside it (her indication that they were in a dream) This gave her subconscious the idea that "this world isn't real, and can only be escaped by death." This allowed Cobb to convince her to die with him and return to reality, however the idea was resilient and not dependent on which reality she was in, so when they returned to reality, the idea persisted, leading to her suicide.

Cobb confronts Mal, who begs him to stay with her. She tells him to "take a leap of faith" (which is similar to what she said before committing suicide) She also points out that his life of espionage on the run from a faceless corporation is itself rather dream like. She urges him to decide what "feels true" Cobb agrees to stay with her if she'll turn over Fischer. She agrees and Ariadne takes Fischer and tosses him out a window to provide him a kick back to the third level. (The sedative was only designed for three levels deep, so the equilibrium fail safe doesn't prevent them from getting back to level three)She follows suit after Cobb assures her he's not staying with Mal, but must retrieve Saito.

He reveals to Mal, that she is not just a simple projection, but his effort at reconstructing his wife, which unfortunately isn't even close to who she was and her complexity. He reveals that they had lived a full life in the dreamworld, even growing old together before they died, (we see them walking as an elderly couple) now however he is ready to let her go. Mal stabs him and he ends up in Saito's section of limbo, where Saito has in a short time become an old man.  (Time is greatly affected by perception in Limbo and Limbo is naturally disorienting. Saito, like Mal and Cobb on their first visit, forgot he was in Limbo)


Up on the third level, Eames has revived Fischer, thanks to the kick Ariadne gave him. He easily opens up the locked door and finds his father there on his deathbed. His father is able to finish the sentence which the younger Fischer had only made out the word "disappointed" from earlier. He says "I'm disappointed that you tried to be like me." Fischer then opens the safe and finds a pinwheel which he had been holding in a picture with his father when he was a young boy. This is the catharsis that they had suggested to him, which he thinks is authentic because his own mind fed it to him helped by their cues.

Eames starts the third level kick by blowing up the fortress, Arthur starts the kick in the elevator, and the van hits the water providing the last kick bringing them all back to the plane, except for Saito and Cobb.

Saito doesn't immediately recognize Cobb, although he does recognize the top (we are watching the beginning of the movie again) Saito asks if Cobb is there to kill him, possibly due to the gun on the table. Cobb and Saito repeat the quote from the helicopter (alternating parts) "I thought I would die an an old man full of regrets" Cobb says he wants to bring him back so they can be young men together again. He also echoes Mal's speech to him asking Saito to take a leap of faith. Saito grabs the gun and there is a gunshot, but we don't see it. (The sedative has worn off by now, so going up through the levels, without a kick is much easier)

Cobb soon wakes, and finds Saito is awake as well. Saito makes the promised phone call and departing the plane we see Miles waiting. Cobb gets through customs with no problem and they arrive back at Mal and Cobb's old house where the kids are. Cobb starts the top spinning but turns away before he can see what it does, so happy to see his kids faces. The top slightly wobbles but recovers, still spinning when the screen cuts to black for the credits leaving a question as to whether he's dreaming or not.

Personally, I think the closest we can get to an explanation is that Cobb has arrived at his emotional reality. Since we are seeing through Cobb's point of view it isn't possible to be more definite, because of several factors. Whether the top continues spinning or not doesn't matter. Whether the children have aged or not doesn't matter (at least it doesn't indicate a "reality") Cobb is a skilled architect, whether he practices or not, and he is clearly not in control of his subconscious mind, which is more than able to use his skills (for example Mal ruining his jobs, a train coming down the middle of the street to attack him)

The team decides early on that a positive thought overpowers a negative one, and I think that is really the happy ending here. Cobb escapes from his negative thoughts (Mal, regrets) and accepts his positive ones, via the help of his own subconscious. Cobb's subconscious has enough control over him that it can create a world that is for all intents and purposes "real" It would also know that the kids not changing at all would clue in Cobb that it wasn't real and so would age them logically. It's also very possible that he can control the top (not necessarily consciously). The top is more of a reminder of his guilt than an indicator of reality, being Mal's totem and not his. It may not be coincidental that it wobbled slightly when he turned his attention away from it and toward his kids.

Cobb has found a "feeling" reality, if that is so, it's doubtful he would ever think otherwise as his subconscious would sustain it. I don't believe that Nolan overlooked any details (he felt compelled to explain why a 747 was the only plane possible to perform the Inception, and he spent over ten years writing this.) Many things don't add up, such as why his wife's parent's would be staying at his old house, which would doubtlessly torture them (Mal's mother wouldn't even talk to Cobb on the phone)

The names of his crew are also too coincidental to not be intentional,
"Mal" (you know, "evil")
"Ariadne" (the girl who led Theseus through the labyrinth)
"Yusuf" (the Islamic form of Joseph, whose story in the Quran starts with keeping a dream secret)
"Arthur" (the mythical hero figure, possibly after King Arthur who was initially called from obscurity, and eventually went away to Avalon (limbo) to be called when Britain needs him.) (Nolan is British-American)
"Eames" (possibly for Charles Eames, originator of the "banana leaf philosophy" in which the banana leaf, the most basic dish for eating in India is transformed into something fantastically ornate due to the man who is eating off of it.)
"Saito"  (a name meaning purifying flower, common in Japan and descending from a Head of the Ise Shrine (most sacred of all Shito Shrines, associated with the sun goddess Ameratsu) The goddess Ameratsu on choosing Ise for her Shrine said "the province of Ise, the divine wind, is the land wither repair the waves from the eternal world, the successive waves. It is a secluded and pleasant land. In this land I wish to dwell." Ameratsu was also tricked into coming out from a cave she hid in by laughter.)
"Robert Fischer" (Bobby Fischer, international fugitive and renowned chess player)
These names are even more significant in that Cobb, being an extremely intelligent person, obsessed with all things dream related, would be aware of these significances. That he doesn't notice points out that he is skilled at self deception, perhaps subconsciously not wanting to poke in that direction. The names could still be a coincidence, but Cobb not noticing is not. However, they could (and i believe they are) all be aspects of Cobb's own mind.

There is also the fact that, as Mal points out, his reality, in general, is very dreamlike, on the run from a faceless, all powerful corporation (which Saito clearly has some sway over, although he's presented as an enemy or competitor of the company) His international fugitive status does not match his supposed charges, being a suspect for killing his wife would certainly make him wanted, but when Miles questioned him about being in Paris, and Cobb mentioned a long tedious extradition process, Miles said "In your case they make make an exception" which makes him sound more like a global terrorist, than a murder suspect. There is also the impossibility of Saito clearing Cobb's legal troubles with one phone call, which reaches every airport security person in less than a minute.

It's also doubtful that the top is the genuine top. The original inception only worked because the top was left locked in the vault spinning. I can't imagine Cobb ran off to go get it in the middle of their dream suicide pact and if he'd removed it beforehand the inception wouldn't have worked. Furthermore his recollection of their "escape" clearly changes with his perception (in some memories Mal and Cobb are elderly when it happens, others they are young)
Cobb hadn't been back to Limbo afterwards or Mal wouldn't be working so hard to convince him to return there. Which would mean that either it's a different top or a top he created, in either event, anything signified by the top would be suspect.

There is a scene where Cobb watches the top spinning, contemplating shooting himself in the head. We assume he doesn't do so because the top stops spinning, but if the top is a reminder of guilt, the top spinning or not, may not be as important as we think. Also, if I recall correctly, his kids call at about the time the top stops spinning, which could be an early instance of the positive subconscious working against the negative. The kids (positive) appear in dreams as often as Mal does, after all.

My read, is that the entire film is Cobb's subconscious moving him away from regret and into a positive space and the dream world is every bit as real as a non dream world. (This is suggested when he first visits Yusuf, and the room of dreamers, when the old man attending them says "Maybe they're waking, Who are you to say?") The Edith Piaf, song used prominently throughout the film to cue the kicks is "Non, je ne regrette rien" (No, I regret Nothing)which suggests that regret is what Cobb is escaping, as much as the dream world.

 The only thing that matters is that Cobb believes the reality. I don't believe that a detail was missed in this movie as Nolan is the opposite of a haphazard film maker. Of course it's open for other readings, which is really the wonderful thing about it, as dreams themselves are open to many interpretations. But any way you look at it, the movie is very simply a journey away from regret, and dream or not, it isn't easy to get there. It's worth remembering too, that Nolan has never given us the expected happy ending. Every movie, he's done up until now, has ended with his tortured main character lost in a world he created. Which doesn't mean he couldn't change that, but his history lends more credence to not changing that element.

Technically the movie is a marvel. The dream effects are astounding, buildings folding in on each other, endless staircases, reality literally combusting in a Paris diner, to say nothing of the transition effects, like the bathwater rushing in and soaking the whole dreamworld below it. I could really name effects all day (the zero gravity fight sequence) but I'll just say they were breathtaking, unique and all very suited to the dream world.  The effects people here are clearly at the top of their game.

All of that of course, would be only disappointing if the story wasn't so intriguing and meticulously layered. Nolan is a master at layered storytelling, and it's obvious that this is the project he's been dying to make happen. What often happens with big spectacle movies, is that they end up being about the spectacle. In this case, the spectacle only serves to reinforce the very personal human story of how very difficult it is to move past regret, and impossible to do if you fight your own mind.

The acting is all very good, if a bit caricaturish at times, but if each character is playing or even suggesting the possibility of a certain aspect of Cobb, then that's to be expected. DiCaprio was great. Gordon-Levitt was terrifically entertaining, and the rest of the cast carried their own weight very competently, giving us a well rounded and engaging ensemble. The only minus I would give it is the score being a bit too loud in parts, which didn't kill anything but was slightly distracting when you're listening for key bits of dialogue. A terrific use of your two hours or so, this is a movie that reminds me, that in the right hands, a movie, is simply a director's chance to create their own world.

Brick

I really didn't want to like this movie before I watched it. The idea of a noir type mystery being set at a high school and populated by high school students seemed more than a little ridiculous and gimmicky. And I still think it is, however, I think the film gains more with this approach than I would've thought possible and the gimmick really works. We already know how a Phillip Marlowe story works, but by inserting it into the unlikely setting of a high schooler's world, we get a great new look at the conventions of these films (noirish thrillers and high school drama) and what makes them so compelling.

Brendan Frye(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is our teenaged Phillip Marlowe. And while he outwardly doesn't have much in common with Humphrey Bogart, he does manage to make his character believable. The set up is that Brendan's ex-girlfriend Em (Emilie de Ravin) is dead and he needs to find out the how and why of it. As with many good noirs, we start the film with a body, then pull back to fill in how Brendan arrived there. Brendan of course is a loner, doesn't belong to any cliques at the high school, but he can certainly take care of himself.

Gordon-Levitt's performance is really the key to this movie working. The rest of the cast is also great, which is fortunate, since balanced on such an absurd concept, even one bad performance could've soured the whole thing. Everyone in this movie plays their role straight and serious. But, it's the intensity of Gordon-Levitt's  presence and his mastery of the noir styled snappy patter that allow us to believe the film. He's troubled, brooding, tough and not afraid to cause trouble to get the answers he wants. His only real ally is "The Brain" (Matt O'Leary)  The Brain helps Brendan (and the audience) figure out some code words he overheard. As you might expect, the clues lead Brendan into conflict with the high school drug world.

Brendan's search starts with a panicked phone call from Em which he doesn't understand. Since he and Em had broken up he doesn't know who she's hanging around with (who she was "eating lunch with") Calling a number on an invitation he finds on Em's morror in the drama club dressing room, he gets himself an in with Laura (Nora Zenetner) the films femme fatale, who may or may not know exactly what Brendan wants, but at least knows someone who does. Laura brushes him off, so Brendan turns to beating on Dode, a small time druggie, and possibly Em's current boyfriend, for information. (and still not getting any.) He follows Dode and sees him meeting with Em, and tracks her down from there. She meets him just to tell him to forget about the phone call and let her go. The conversation reveals a lot about Brendan's character and the differences between the two of them:

Brendan Frye: So, what am I?
Emily: Yeah, I mean what are you? Just sitting back here, hating everyone? Who are you to judge anyone? God, I really loved you a lot. I couldn't stand it. I had to get with people. I couldn't have a life with you anymore.

Of course, even after this, Brendan can't let it go. Despite the fact that Em herself told him to forget about it, he's got his teeth into the mystery and needs to see what it's all about and he now has a mysterious symbol that Em dropped with "Midnight" written underneath it. He figures out the symbol in a dream just in time to find Em's body at the mouth of an open sewer tunnel in the morning. He hears someone else in the tunnel and heads towards the sound only to get punched in the dark before the unknown person runs away.

Brendan hides the body and resolves to figure out the story and make some people pay. He gets the idea that "The Pin" is connected to Em's demise, but he's not even certain that he exists.  He decides that the easiest way to find him is to make trouble higher up the drug food chain, starting with Brad Bramish, (Brian J. White) the school football hero/drug dealer. To get the Pin's attention he gives Brad a good beating. He's rewarded by being knocked out in the street by Tugger (Noah Fleiss)

Brendan soon makes a deal with the vice principal, who he has a relationship with from having turned in a drug dealer in the past to protect Em (a favor that Em did not appreciate) He agrees not to bother him for anything he isn't caught at. Soon after,Tugger tracks him down again and after beating him up a bit, decides to bring him to the Pin.

The legandary Pin is older (26) and he has his own office (a finished basement in his Mom's house with little furniture other than a desk and an Eagle statue.) The Pin wants to know why he's looking for him. Brendan can't resist being a smart ass, so Tugger chokes him unconscious, although Laura appears in the background, telling Tugger to stop. The Pin realizes that Brendan was just proving he wasn't afraid of him and they sit down for apple juice (served by the Pin's mom) to get Brendan's story. Brendan claims he has a realtionship with the Vice Principal's office, which he's willing to let the Pin benefit from for a fee. The Pin lets him leave telling him they'll either hire him or rub him out by the end of the next day. Laura drives him back to school trying to convince Brendan to trust her. Brendan tells her, 'I trust you less now than when I didn't trust you before."

He's soon attacked by a mysterious guy with a knife. After Brendan knocks him out he's picked up by the Pin who tells him he's been accepted into their group. Brendan also gets a phone call from Dode who apparently saw him at the tunnel with Em's body and is now threatening to tell people about it. The Pin starts confiding in Brendan, telling him he's having trouble with Tugger and that he's having complications from the biggest deal he's ever done. Brendan plays up his doubts about Tugger. He breaks into the Pin's headquarter's and snooping around for clues he runs into Tugger who attacks him until Brendan manages to uncover some of Tugger's doubts about the Pin. Tugger reveals that they had trouble with a missing "Brick" (heroin) Tugger claims not to know who Em is.  The Pin comes home afterwards and reveals that Tugger thought Em was his girl and that someone wants to set up a meeting with the Pin to sell them information about Em's whereabouts. He then gives Brendan a piece of paper similiar to the one that Em had the day she died to set up a meeting at the tunnel.

Brendan knows it's Dode setting up the meeting and asks Laura to keep an eye out and signal him with the horn when Dode shows. Brendan runs into Dode before the meeting and tries to tell him he's in over his head. Dode however is obsessed with making Brendan pay, revealing that Em was pregnant. With The Pin, Tugger and Brendan present, Dode tries to taunt Brendan without naming him to make sure he gets paid for the information. He manages to accidentally anger Tugger, who snaps and kills Dode. Brendan is now forced to play on The Pin and Tugger's loyalties as the Pin has now had enough of Tugger's hothead behavior and doesn't want to be implicated for murder. Brendan sets up a meeting between them, ostensibly to try and help them part ways amicably. Laura is never far away either, still trying to convince Brendan that she's on his side. He has the Brain set up a bust at the same time the meeting occurs. At the meeting Brendan acts as mediator. Things inevitably fall apart as Tugger and Pin and their two sides start fighting over the Brick (which it is discovered is missing) Brendan walks away in the middle of their fight as the cops are about to show.

He sets up a meeting with Laura on the football field. He claims that he wasn't at the meeting and Laura tells him the Pin and Tugger are dead and there was a girl's body in Tugger's trunk (Em). Brendan reveals that while Tugger killed Em, it was Laura who caused the events that killed Em. She had stolen half the Brick and cut it with junk, sending a guy into a coma. She then pinned it onto Em, and later got Tugger upset knowing that he'd get mad and snap when he found out she was pregnant. He then lets her know that he's given a note to the vice principal telling him everything and that the missing Brick is in her locker. While they're talking we see the locker being opened  and the brick is there. Laura can't resist getting in a final twist and reveals that Em wasn't planning to keep the baby because she didn't love the father and that she was three months along making it Brendan's kid.

I think that one reason the movie works is that it's true to both the noir experience and the high school experience. Seeing these characters in parts that are obviously too old for them reminds me how seriously high school students take themselves, and how overwhelming the experience can be. The Pin in particular is portrayed as both a drug kingpin and a kid trying to appear as a drug kingpin. While his cloak and his cane with a duck head would seem odd for a traditional kingpin, for the Pin, his look is all about how he wants to see himself. Brendan's character is able to start bawling in one scene remembering Emily as he goes to bed. Phillip Marlowe wouldn't have been able to get away with that. But since the age allows more vulnerability, Brendan can do this awithout appearing weak. He thinks he has everything figured out, but he can't do the one thing he wanted to, which was to protect Em.

While I don't think Brick is intended to be a strict metaphor for the high school experience, I think that there are elements in the film that work in that way. By borrowing the truth of the high school experience to inform the noir experience, we end up with an effective take on both.There are a few laughs in the film at these characters trying to fit into older shoes, (particularly at the Pin's house) but the seriousness doesn't go away because of them. The story is life or death to the characters, and young or not, nobody gets away clean. Rian Johnson makes an amazing film, particularly so, since it's based on quite a risky proposition.