Looper | Review
Rian Johnson’s ‘Looper’ is a film more sci-fi movies should strive to be. It’s a film that took a lot of time and delicate work to be crafted as perfectly as possible. Johnson spent ten years developing the intricate narrative for this film, which involves time travel, a tricky plot device. All of this time-consuming work paid off as Johnson’s latest film is easily one of the best films of the year, and it’s probably one of the best science-fiction films of the past decade.
The movie stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Joe, a special kind of hitman, called loopers, in the year 2044. Thirty years in the future time travel will have been invented and immediately outlawed. Mobsters from the year 2074 send their victims back to Joe’s time to be killed by the loopers in order to leave no trace of the body. Loopers are paid handsomely and live lavishly. The only setback to the job is that, when they’re older, eventually all of the Loopers will be sent back in time to be killed by their younger selves. Joe and the other loopers understand this contract, known as “closing the loop,” and so they spend the limited time they do have on exquisite lifestyles, like fancy clothes and cars, doing drugs, and partying.
Joe’s life is turned on its head when he accidentally breaks the biggest rule of the looper game – not letting your target escape. The matter is even worse since the target that escaped is Joe’s future self (played by Bruce Willis). As Young Joe hunts for Old Joe, the mob boss from Young Joe’s timeline and his armed men, called Gats, are also hunting for the both of them. This boss is Abe, played by a wickedly funny and bearded Jeff Daniels (‘The Newsroom’), who was sent from the future to establish the looper organization.
The central themes of ‘Looper’ involve identity, redemption, and sacrifice. Young Joe is selfish, immature, and highly unlikable, and Old Joe realizes this. Through the years Old Joe had grown wiser. The interactions between the Young and Old Joe’s are interesting because they despise one another and must go through each other to achieve their own separate goals. Though Old Joe’s secretive mission (which I will not reveal here) comes from good intentions it has its own drawbacks that can make Old Joe seem just as selfish as his younger self. While Old Joe starts out sympathetic, he’s slightly less so as the film progresses. Young Joe, on the other hand, is unpleasant in the beginning but slowly grows more compassionate. This growth has to do with a woman named Sara (Emily Blunt, ‘The Five-Year Engagement’).
Sara is a single mom who lives with her young son on a farm house. Her son, Cid (Pierce Gagnon), is a smart yet disturbed child with some serious anger issues. Young Joe quickly becomes involved in this small family and even grows close to young Cid, who seems to like Joe more than he does his mother. Young Joe’s involvement with Sara and Cid is soon entangled with Old Joe’s goals, in which a pleasant outcome for either one of them is guaranteed impossible.
The ingenuity of ‘Looper’s’ plot lies heavily upon its character-driven script, written by Johnson, and the way it avoids the problems that come with time travel stories. We never know for sure if we should root for Young Joe or Old Joe’s goals to prevail, or if it even makes a difference. The paradoxes and time travel mechanics are swiftly swept under the rug when Old Joe tells his younger self “I don’t want to talk about time travel. We’ll be here all day drawing diagrams with straws.” Yes, everything that happens to Young Joe as a result of Old Joe’s actions end up affecting Old Joe in the process, including his memory, but all of the other nitpicky paradoxal time travel issues are sidestepped.
The performances here are wonderful throughout the board. Emily Blunt’s character is not for pure eye candy or for the introduction of a love story. Sara is a strong and sometimes brash woman. She’s totally fine being independent. Joseph Gordon-Levitt never seems to disappoint and ‘Looper’ showcases another one of his fine performances. It’s tricky to act as a younger Bruce Willis but Levitt makes it seem easy (with the help of some prosthetics). Speaking of Willis, his portrayal of Old Joe is one of the best I’ve seen from him. He’s wonderfully emotional and sympathetic, which I haven’t really seen before other than in ‘Moonrise Kingdom’. The actor that deserves the most praise in ‘Looper’, however, has to be young six-year-old Pierce Gagnon. I don’t know how Rian Johnson discovered the boy but I bet he’s glad he did. Gagnon’s portrayal of the slightly “off” Cid is amazing and one of the best child performances I’ve ever seen; it’s a performance composed entirely of energy and vivacity.
‘Looper’ is one of the sharpest, most compelling films of the year. It features concise plotting and powerful performances. The major plot twist and conclusion are powerful and initiate discussions. The score by Nathan Johnson is also memorable and admirable in its attempt to sound as best as it can for the film’s benefit. For an action flick the score features less loud banging music (lesser action films now are copying the “bronggggg” horns like Hans Zimmer’s most recent works) and more quiet, intimate sounds. The ten years it took to develop ‘Looper’ was well spent and it definitely didn’t hurt the film. The last time I had seen a film that took this long to come into fruition was a little film called ‘Inception’. The amount of time spent crafting that mesmerizing plot paid off as well. Perhaps the successes of ‘Looper’ and ‘Inception’ can convince big studios to invest more time into their films to ensure the best quality?
