Inception is funny because the final heist is a wildly different experience for everyone involved.
Yusuf drives across town under gunfire and voluntarily drives off the edge of a bridge. He probably has a resting heart rate of 180 for the duration and it’s over in, say, 15 minutes.
Arthur finally gets to snap at his boss, something we get the sense he’s been wanting to do for a solid year now. He vents the rest of his frustrations on unsuspecting goons, then spends the rest of the heist quietly problem solving around his unconscious and therefore uncomplaining teammates. This is probably his preferred way of dealing with people.
Saito gets shot and dies an agonizing death for anywhere from a few minutes to about an hour. Instead of being allowed to peacefully suffer, he volunteers to lead his business rival on a mountain expedition that involves driving pitons into rock, then survives a free fall down the same mountain before holding off enemy fire with his dying breath. His reward for finally kicking the bucket is aging fifty fucking years.
Cobb literally goes through every stage of grief and dies twice. I mean he’s not my favourite but he’s certainly suffering for his art.
Ariadne is on the steepest learning curve of her life: by the end of this learning abroad experience, she’s a certified psychiatrist and also she’s shot someone.
Eames is going through every single one of his employable skills like an intern hoping to be promoted at the end of term. This includes hitting on two billionaires and firing a grenade launcher to impress a coworker. By far having the most fun.
Robert Fischer has been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company for a week. He’s been sedated, kidnapped, conned, betrayed, led mountain-climbing, shot, resuscitated, and resolves an adult life time worth of daddy issues in the time it takes to order coffee. Possibly fires his uncle when he lands for reasons he can’t explain even to himself.
