Breathtaking - literally

Rating: 9/10 (4 October 2012)

It is the near future. Time travel has not yet been invented, but it will in a few years. Joe knows this because organised crime in the future no longer murders people because of difficulties disposing of the bodies: instead, it sends them back in time for people like Joe to kill and dispose of. Joe makes a good living doing this until, one day, the victim sent back is himself, and future Joe escapes. Present-day Joe is driven to find and kill future Joe (and thereby put his own life back on track) and future Joe is driven to find future crime boss The Rainmaker to prevent a future tragedy.
I love science fiction, I'm a sucker for well constructed time travel stories, I like violent crime thrillers, and I very much like Bruce Willis (future Joe) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (present-day Joe). So this movie ticked a lot of my boxes before it started. And it continued to tick them all the way through: it is an intelligent science fiction action thriller with good performances all round - Willis is probably as good here as he ever has been, and Levitt does well in capturing Willis' speech patterns, aided by prosthetics, and hampered by deeply distracting eyebrows. Emily Blunt - not a favourite - is very good, and Pierce Gagnon gives an astonishing performance for a child his age. I suspect that not all of the plot stands up under close examination, but it definitely works well enough for me.
And, a rarity, there is a moment in it which literally (and I do mean "literally") took my breath away - I was so emotionally and intellectually shocked by it that I gasped and then could not breathe for moments. I'm sure not everyone will have that reaction, but I did, and that moment stayed with me as I left the cinema.
Highly recommended for those with a leaning towards science fiction and crime thrillers.