Nolan has successfully placed his audience in a state of limbo, literally.

Rating: 9/10 (18 November 2012)

As expected from one of my most respectable directors of all time, this is one hell of a brilliant masterpiece, cleverly sculpted in many aspects. Though the fast pace of the film renders the significance of certain details, such as the organization who hired the dream stealers, the totems and how Saito was targeted in the first place was dimmed -- possibly a deliberate motive to keep us guessing or unraveling its ambiguity. this film may be an exceptional thriller, but it is certainly not qualified to be an exceptional dream film, as compared to say, Mulholland drive or Donnie Darko. I have yet to see a perfect dream film anyway.
This is because Nolan placed too much logic in a realm where dreams are supposedly logic-free. For instance, projections do not necessarily die after getting shot in a dream right? All in all, the ending is truly remarkable. No one will ever know what the real conclusion would be. The actual 'dream' could have started anywhere in any point in the film (there was a scene where Leonardo's totem spinning was interrupted and he never spun again aside from the limbo scene). Nolan successfully placed his audience in a state of limbo, literally.