In 2005, two things happened when the
movie 'Brick' was made. Director Rian Johnson made his directorial
debut and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt established himself as a premier
actor of his generation, along with films like 'Inception', '(500)
Days of Summer', and 'The Dark Knight Rises'. The two reunite again
for Looper, a sci-fi thriller that certainly makes all of the right
moves when it comes to its writing. Like with Christopher Nolan's
Inception back in 2010, Looper is one of the best written and most
original films to come out in a long time with a story that is not
only compelling, but brings much emotional substance to the table as
well. It doesn't ignore the heavy material that it's focusing on and
is a film that will leave you talking about it long after it is over.
In the year 2074, time travel will have
been invented but it is immediately deemed outlawed. The only ones
who use it are criminal organizations who utilize the system in order
to rid themselves of their targets. To do that, they send them back
30 years to the year 2044 where hired hit men known as Loopers
eliminate the targets, thereby erasing them from existence. Joe
(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of these Loopers and like the others,
he lives the good life on the one condition that he must never let
any of his targets escape. But Joe soon faces a huge problem when his
latest target (Bruce Willis) is none other than himself 30 years from
now. Hesitating, Joe allows his older self to escape and is now
forced on the run from his employers as he tries to fix his dilemma,
even if it means killing his older self in the process.
So why did Joe's employers send him his
own future self to kill? Well, this is a process known as 'closing
the loop' that the crime syndicates eventually use on all of their
Loopers in order to terminate their contracts. This is some pretty
heavy stuff the movie deals with, and Johnson does not hesitate to
illustrate the effect of this situation on these hit men. When a
Looper 'closes his loop', they never realize that they killed their
own selves at first because their future self's face is covered by a
hood like all of their other targets. They will treat it like it's
any other kill and won't realize what they did until it's too late.
In the case of Joe, his future self arrived without a hood so he
quickly realized who his latest target was. But then Johnson throws a
curve ball because apparently the usual reaction that Loopers have
when their Loop is closed is quite surprising at first. You would
think that they would be horrified by the fact that they just
literally just killed themselves, but instead they respond by
celebrating about it, even when they will eventually be on the
receiving end of the blunderbuss shot later on.
On another note, Johnson also makes
sure that Willis is well-utilized. This isn't some case where Willis'
role feels more like a cameo and he is given nothing to do. He plays
a key part in the story, as Old Joe is on a mission to take out the
one person who will one day become the crime boss known as 'The
Rainmaker' in order to fix the future. We also see what drives him to
do this, having had a wife but then losing her because of the
Rainmaker. Both Willis and Gordon-Levitt are excellent and JGL very
much channels Willis in this movie. Aside from his own performance,
the movie makes us buy that JGL's character grows up to become
Willis, both by a key montage in the film where we see how he ended
up being sent back to the year 2044 and of course all of those
prosthetics and makeup done on him. Admittedly it's not perfect, but
you get used to it after a while.
Amidst of all this violence, the film
also has a lot of emotional substance behind it, primarily when Joe
meets Sara (Emily Blunt), a single mother living on a farm with her
son Cid (Pierce Gagnon). Aside from later serving a key part in the
story, their whole back story helps bring a human touch to this
story, and the movie doesn't let CGI overpower the story and
character development. We get a clear idea of this universe, where
crime syndicates run without any problems from police forces. The
whole time-travel aspect of the film is one that is given little
explanation, but even the script makes fun of the fact that, when you
get down to it, all of this time-travel stuff is just too complicated
and, as Jeff Daniels (a great turn here as Joe's boss Abe) puts it,
it “can just fry your brain like an egg”.
Looper is one of those movies that will
leave an impression on you as soon as the credits roll. Easily one of
the smartest and most well-written films of the year, Looper
continues to establish director Rian Johnson's reputation as one of
the top up-and-coming filmmakers after only his third film. Of
course, it also continues to establish Joseph Gordon-Levitt as one of
the best actors of his generation, pairing him up with one of
Hollywood's most well-established leading men with great success.
It's a film that hits you with the deep question of what would you do
if you were faced with the situation of making a decision that will
affect your whole life and doesn't sidestep around it. It's a film I
highly recommend seeing and has my vote for a 'Best Original
Screenplay' nomination at this year's Oscars.
Rating: 5/5!
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