- Rian Johnson's Looper explores a novel sci-fi question I had never considered before: What if you traveled in time and didn't get along with the other version of yourself? Most time travel yarns suggest it's a bad idea to meet your other self, but usually for reasons of preserving causality rather than avoiding unpleasant self-confrontations. Yet Looper's take on time travel makes a lot of sense when you think about it. How many fiftysomethings would enjoy being around their immature and short-sighted younger selves? Likewise, how many young adults would see eye-to-eye with bitter old men who think they know everything? Considering that time travel is one of the more painfully over-deployed sci-fi plot mechanisms, it's a pleasant surprise when movies like this and Primer come along and actually try something new with it.
- The traveler in this case is a fellow named Joe, played as a young man by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and as an older incarnation by Bruce Willis. In an admittedly strange set of circumstances, young Joe works as a hitman for a shady employer (Jeff Daniels) from the future. Basically, neo-mobsters send their targets back in time to get killed, no questions asked. It's a weird sci-fi conceit that would never survive much thoughtful scrutiny, but I found myself more willing to abandon logic once I witnessed young Joe's striking routine that involves driving out to a Kansas cornfield, blasting a hooded victim with his "blunderbuss," and dumping the body in the local incinerator. One day, the masked man turns out to be older Joe. Young Joe knows full well what happened when his friend Seth (Paul Dano) failed to "close his loop" (hence the term "Looper"), but before long the two Joes are arguing at a local diner. All they can agree on is what to order.
- The problem is, old Joe is a man on a mission. He describes a future in which a mysterious figure known as "The Rainmaker" is systematically wiping out all of the Loopers. Old Joe figures if he can kill The Rainmaker early on, maybe he can live happily ever after with his wife (Qing Xu). Again, don't think too much about how it would work. Given what is known about the Rainmaker's murky origins, there's a rather short list of suspects. Maybe it's the child of young Joe's female companion (Piper Perabo). It could also be Seth himself, given the physical deformities he developed last time we saw him. Eventually, it becomes clear that the most likely suspect is the petulant child (Pierce Gagnon) of a local farmer (Emily Blunt). Incidentally, did I mention that telekinesis plays a major role in this film? Like a Philip K. Dick novel, Looper isn't content to limit itself to a single strange idea, but rather embraces as many of them as it can squeeze into two hours. The proceedings feel a bit overstuffed at times, but you have to give the film some credit for being utterly unafraid to combine ideas.
- At its best, Looper reminded me of a creative cross between Back to the Future and Blade Runner, where Kansas City and its starkly contrasting rural surroundings are somehow the new dystopias du jour. The plot never completely passes muster, but the set/costume design and acting, especially by the two prosthetically-assisted actors playing Joe, are generally terrific. Furthermore, Johnson creates enough interesting situations and composes enough striking shots to keep things moving along smoothly. Perhaps most welcome of all is Looper's complete refusal to address the mechanics of time travel, having old Joe note that "if we start talking about it then we're going to be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws." The film's only real lapses in creativity arrive when it lazily resorts to a set of violent shootouts to rid itself of the lingering Loopers. I had naively hoped that guns didn't solve all movie problems in the future, too, but apparently humanity hasn't progressed that much in thirty-something years. Then again, if I grew up to look like John McClane, I'd probably solve problems with guns, too.
- Also featuring Garret Dillahunt and Noah Segan as Loopers.
