By snoadmin
“Time travel has not yet been invented, but 30 years from now, it will have been,” says Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in the opening voiceover of Rian Johnson’s new film “Looper.”
This line is somewhat misleading because it sets up an expectation in the audience’s mind that there is going to be some kind of complex “Inception” style set of rules that explains the world that the characters live in. However, soon the audience will discover that this is not that kind of movie.
The year is 2044, and the world has fallen into some kind of economic decay. As a way to make some quick cash, Joe has taken a job as a looper, an assassin who kills people sent back in time by the mafia. Because the person technically doesn’t exist in the past, disposing of the bodies is easy and untraceable. This job pays very well in bars of solid silver, but there’s a catch.
When the mafia is done with a looper, they remove all traces of him by sending the looper himself back to be killed. This is called “closing the loop,” and it pays in gold bars. All the loopers are aware that they will eventually have to kill an older version of themselves, and they have no idea when it’s going to happen. When Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time to be killed, things go horribly wrong.
“This job doesn’t tend to attract the most forward-thinking people,” Joe says.
The dystopian world that the loopers live in is almost a character in and of itself. Not much explanation is given, but the money all seems to have Chinese symbols on it, and the evidence of social collapse is everywhere. At one point, a man tries to steal a family’s luggage as they get off a bus, and the father of the group pulls out a gun and murders the thief in the middle of the street. These kinds of scenes are brushed past as if they were nothing, and it is left to the viewer to interpret what kind of place this is.
Unlike “Inception,” “The Matrix” and other complex mind-bending sci-fi films, this film does not get caught up in exposition. There are not endless scenes of people discussing “looping” and the details of time travel. In fact, the characters don’t really seem to know much about it at all. All they know is, they stand in a field, wait for a criminal to zap back in time and then shoot them with a giant one-shot gun called a “blunderbuss.” Then they collect their money and go on with their day.
By not spending half the film explaining the rules, Johnson makes the film even more engaging. Part of the fun is deciphering what exactly is going on, which is why it is almost impossible to discuss the plot without spoiling some kind of twist or turn.
As with any time travel film, there are inconsistencies that some would consider plot holes. Johnson does not seem very concerned with adhering to the rules set up in previous time travel films. Instead, he creates something new, which adds a lot of interesting moments to the film. For example, the future version of Joe can only remember something Young Joe has done after he has done it. This leads to fascinating scenes in which Old Joe uses his own cloudy memory to his advantage while also trying not to lose the precious memories of his present.
One of the most worrying things about the film is seen in the marketing. In order to make Gordon-Levitt look more like Bruce Willis, they used prosthetics to make drastic changes to his facial features. Surprisingly, the prosthetics look great and are nowhere near as distracting as one would assume. But unfortunately, because Gordon-Levitt is one of the most recognizable young movie stars around these days, it’s impossible to not notice that he looks different in every scene. Despite this, Gordon-Levitt gives such a strong performance that it is not much of an issue.
This is a film that should be seen with as little prior knowledge about the plot as possible, so make sure to see it before TV spots and trailers spoil some of the film’s more exciting twists. The time travel mechanics may not be completely airtight, but you will have too much fun to notice.
