Nolan rules...

Rating: 9/10 (11 November 2006)

Christopher Nolan rules... I have seen most of Nolan's previous work - The Following (mostly unkonwn in this part of the world), Memento (his breakthrough) and Batman Begins. With increasing budgets for each of these films the rich layered texture of his scripts has becomes grander without taking anything away from the script.
With Batman Begins Nolan used two great acting talents in Christian Bale and Micheal Cane. Cane is a proved talent while Bale is establishing himself as up and coming leading man (courtesy Christopher Nolan). He has used that combination again with addition of another dependable star - Hugh Jackman.
Jackman and Bale are two Illusianists who are learning the ropes of putting up new illusions under the tutelage of Cane, the master illusion builder. Amongst the two Bale is a natural illusionist while Jackman is the natural showman. Their friendship is never really developed or even implied though they are shown to be friendly but always competitive. However an on-stage accident changes all that and turns the competition into rivalry and as the years pass by rivalry turns life threatening.
However great the cast maybe the star of a typical Nolan movie is its script. His movies use actors as puppets - like Hitchcock used his actors. The characters come in and say things that are absolutely baffling and at the end of the film all the random straws are neatly tied into place and suddenly make sense.
A great film that needs to watched at least twice... I am eagerly anticipating the DVD release of the movie.