Not perfect, but still surprisingly good

Rating: Null/10 (20 December 2012)

What we have here is a science fiction film that doesn't try to thrill you with flashy special effects, explosive action scenes and muscled main starts, though it has all of those in some capacity. Rather it relies on a clever premise, charismatic characters and a suspenseful mood to carry the whole story.
And yes, I say clever premise even though the idea of sending one's enemies of the future into the past to be killed by hit men is pretty ludicrous. If you were to think about it logically, you really only needed one guy to run the whole business in the past. One guy would set up a furnace and they would just send all the unwantables into that furnace where they would burn away. But even though the whole looper business could have been handled a whole lot more efficiently, it's still a cool premise that allows for a lot of cool scenes and characters, so I didn't really mind. Besides the very idea of pitting Bruce Willis against his younger counterpart is a reason enough to allow some gaps in logic. The rule of Bruce Willis applies here.
So yes, I really liked this film, but the reason why it didn't get a higher score is that the final half of the film just isn't as strong as the first. The whole film starts as a prelude to a fight between these two characters, whose only difference is their age. You could have had a lot of cool chase and fight scenes with them being able to predict what the other was thinking just because they thought the exact same thing. It could have been a battle between a man and his shadow, each having slightly different strengths - the younger could have had the body and the stamina and the older could have had new tricks and experience - but instead the whole plot gets sidetracked when a minor plot point is suddenly lifted into the center. This new plot is foreshadowed to a certain degree and it does work, but if I'm being honest with myself, I'd have rather watched an epic battle between Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I guess the story that we do get allows for more romance, moral lessons and the usual Hollywood story-telling clichés, which makes the film more appealing to a wider audience than just the fans of intense action, but dammit, I wanted to see an epic battle between Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I still get something to that effect, but it's... just not as good.
But no, even though I rant about it, I don't think that this is a bad film, quite the opposite in fact. The final half of the film isn't what I was expecting to get, but it's still a good story, heart-warming even, while still maintaining that same hardcore dystopian feeling that the film does so well from the very first scene. So I'd recommend this film. It's a film with a lot of heart, intelligence and style, with great actors and an interesting premise. What more do you need?