Looper is a sci fi thriller and it’s the kind of sci fi where there’s time travelling, flying motorcycles, eye drop drugs and the inevitable trying to avoid the end of the world thing. Although it’s set 30 years in the future, the aesthetics of the movie resemble the 1950s.
Rian Johnson reteamed with producer Ram Bergman in 2009 for the time travelling movie that was about time travel. Johnson wanted to make a movie that used time travel as a narrative tool, but was more character based. The movie was written and directed by Rian Johnson and stars Joseph Gordon Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt. The movie had a budget of 30 million dollars and it made over 136 million in the box office.
The story revolves around Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt), a self absorbed orphan kid who got under the wing of a mobster from the future (played by Jeff Daniels) to become a looper in his adult life. In the future, no one can get away with murder, so they hire loopers to kill and dispose the bodies in the past. Squeaky clean. Loopers live large and they retire early, as soon as their contract is up, they’re captured by the mob and sent to the past to be disposed by their past self. Not sure why you need to be killed by yourself, but there you go. Several years go by and Joe’s life of excess ends when he finds the love of his life, however, when his contract is up, they kill her and future Joe (Bruce Willis) travels back in time to make sure present Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt) doesn’t screw things up. Oh, and he also needs to kill the mysterious Rainmaker and that’s when Emily Blunt’s character is introduce, since she is the mom of one of the kids future Joe wants to kill to make sure the Rainmaker doesn’t destroy the world.
The thing about Looper is that I wasn’t expecting for a character based movie, I was expecting cool guns, time travelling, explosions and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wait, there’s no time travel in Total Recall, right? Looper was sold as a time travel thriller, but it’s so much more than that, so much so, that I can’t really talk about how to movie switches its mood without giving away the whole thing. Looper is probably one of the best action movies of the year without having that much action, which is quite refreshing. Rian Johnson did a great job here and I can’t wait what he brings next.
Although not quite as mindless fun as other low brow options out there, Looper’s intelligent plot and solid performances by Joseph Gordon Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt is rather fulfilling as a whole. The change of pace half way through it, let’s you breath, but builds enough tension for your limbs to be glued to the chair. In other hands Looper would be really confusing, but Johnson makes sure we are always on the same page and that’s what good movies are made of.
