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Prior to the release of his long-awaited third feature, Brick director Rian Johnson had commented on being influenced by Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which indeed has a long lasting appreciation. Because of Nolan’s brain-scrambling masterpiece, there has been an array of intelligent sci-fi from greats like Duncan Jones’ Source Code to not-so-greats like Andrew Niccol’s In Time. Following dreamscapes and time-living, time travel is given a fresh and exciting approach, thanks to Johnson’s latest.
In a futuristic gangland in the year 2044, mafia assassins known as “Loopers” kill and dispose those sent by their employers from corporate headquarters from the next thirty years. The loopers are paid on the condition that all targets must never escape. Sadly for the young looper Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), he fails to kill his next target, which is a future version of himself (Bruce Willis), causing his employers to come after him, forcing him to fight for his life as he hunts his older self.
Whilst the concept of time travel will be more familiar for mainstream audiences with the Back to the Future trilogy, there are those who might compare Looper to Bruce Willis’ previous time-travel yarn Twelve Monkeys, which forced you to put your head in gear and figure out its complex structure. Whilst Looper is not as puzzling as Gilliam’s film, writer/director Rian Johnson presents a puzzling but fun thriller exploring not only its theory of time travel, but also its futuristic world that is strange, chaotic and cool.
Throughout the film, you can see what it is referencing from its noirish atmosphere of the futuristic surroundings to later the old western landscapes, along with a plot to somewhat mirror The Terminator, as well as a tiny gag about superheroes which becomes a key moment in the story. As always with time-travel flicks, it has to piece together the threads of the plot, which indeed it cleverly does, but the real strength of Looper is the character dynamics between the young self-absorbent Joe and his older sympathetic self, and how their actions blur the line between good and bad.
While you’re not going to see Bruce Willis in a vest (given his age), he does hold a lot of guns and does indeed shoot a lot of people, but acting-wise, he does show some emotion, particularly in the film’s surprisingly dark moments. To look and sound like his co-star without saying “yippee-ki-yay”, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young Bruce Willis is a convincing antihero who lives his life by killing targets from the future, and unlike his older self, struggles to feel any emotion towards anyone. In Looper’s finest sequence, the thirty-year span from young Joe to old Joe is a master stroke of both story and character.
With the introduction of Emily Blunt’s southern-accented Sara and her son, the story does slow down as it focuses on the relationship between Joe and the small but dysfunctional family, so you do wait a bit for the action to come back. On the other hand, Blunt is terrific as the shotgun-wielding mother who is struggling to keep her son safe. During the course, there is a great supporting cast surrounding the three poster names, including Paul Dano’s troubled looper, Noah Segan’s ambitious but idiot henchman, and best of all, Jeff Daniels as the laid-back mafia boss who has the great funny speech about time travel.
Since his debut Brick, any follow-up by Rian Johnson is exciting and with Looper, he has shown that he is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. It may not be perfect, but Looper is an excellent time-travel actioner that is thought-provoking and thrilling.
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