Looper

Released: 2012 Running time: 118 mins. Director: Rian Johnson Rated: R

Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Piper Perabo, Noah Segan, Jeff Daniels, Garret Dillahunt 

Bruce Willis, in a film in which his character travels back in time to stop a person that causes death in his future. He takes drastic measures to change the future, fails in his plan, but ultimately sacrifices himself. In the end, it is left to decide whether or not he succeeded- but enough about 12 Monkeys! (thank you David Chen).

In Rian Johnson’s (Brick) Looper , the future has discovered time travel. It was outlawed, for reasons you can imagine, and is now a black market commodity, used by shady types. The future is 2074, the present time is 2044. We are introduced to Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brick), a contract killer that dispatches unknown targets sent back from the future and that are figuratively gift wrapped. Joe has aspirations of retiring to Europe and his steadily saving his silver, which they are paid in, learning french.. and getting high on a drug taken through eyedrops.

The job of these contract killers called “Loopers” is to be at a specific time and place where their targets appear handcuffed with a sack over their heads and they are unceremoniously blown away with a blunderbuss. A very simple, unskilled profession.

Time travel in the future is used like a fourth dimensional garbage disposal, where criminals get rid of rivals, witnesses in the future by sending them to past to be disposed of, and leaving no evidence of of their misdeeds in their time. For the Loopers, who are on the bottom of the assassin chain, it is a pretty cushy gig.

Things become complicated though, when they are contracted to kill their future selves and are “retired”. They receive a huge payout and retirement party, knowing that decades from now they will be sent back in time and kill by their younger selves, “closing the loop”.

Joe’s friend and fellow Looper, Seth (Paul Dano, There Will Be Blood) does not handle this well and his older self escapes. And there are severe consequences for looper not completing a contract, even worse for a contract of ones self. Old Seth rapidly reveals the brutal torture being done to young Seth, and knowing that he lived decades more in the state he is left in surely sticks with me.

Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

The pivotal stage of the film comes when Joe finds out he is being “retired” when his future self appears before him to be killed, closing his loop. “Young Joe” hesitates and “Old Joe” (Bruce Willis, Die Hard) escapes, in which he tries to conceal and recapture him. A game of cat & mouse begins, and we find out that there is more to Old Joe’s appearance in 2044. We get to see this through a stylish montage of present Joe to future Joe, where he becomes more ruthless and heartless over the years, only to become softened and fall in love.

That is all taken from him when a dangerous and powerful man called “The Rainmaker” takes over the criminal underworld in the future and mandates that all Loopers be killed and future Joe’s wife is killed. He escapes his captors and sends himself back, his plan is to kill the child that becomes the Rainmaker in the future, thus saving his wife from death.

Old Joe goes on a kid killing spree, which is very disturbing. We see that he has reverted back to that ruthless Joe of yesteryear and is determined to remove all the children from his list to make sure that he kills the future Rainmaker.

Sara (Emily Blunt, Edge Of Tomorrow) is the mother of one such potential. Blunt is excellent in this role, as a strong, rough protective mother dealing with trauma and regret. She meets young Joe as he gets one step of old Joe’s list and attempts to help her protect him, even if her child may be and grow up to be one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the future.

Gordon-Levitt, with his minimal prosthetics (lips, nose, eyebrows and contacts), pulls off a younger version of Bruce Willis’ Joe. His performance showed that he studied Willis’ mannerisms and voice for this film. In the diner scene, which old Joe makes a poignant statement about time travel, paradox’s and how this film addresses them - with grains of salt - no deep dives into the time travel processes. Focus is on the characters and how time travel is flawed just as much as those that use it.

The hapless, non-menacing baddie is Abe (Jeff Daniels, The Looming Tower), sent from the future to oversee the present day operations, pass out the silver and direct his “Gat Men” to dole out punishment to those that break the rules. that is pretty much Abe.

Looper is imaginative, fun, not entirely bogged down with explaining the physics of it’s time travel, and does not have to be. Well done Johnson.

In Retrospect ★★★★☆