Best sci-fi for a long, long time; best time-loop sci-fi ever

Rating: Null/10 (1 October 2012)

I'm not going to waste time and space (no pun intended) to list all the sci-fi movies based on the time travel paradox over the last few decades. "Looper" best them all, with clever adherence to simplicity and consistency.
The basic premise is lucidly explained from the outset with a clear, concise VO by the protagonist Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) a "looper" (to be explained later) living in Kansas City 2044, when time travel has NOT yet been invented. His job, however, depends entirely on what happens 30 year later, when time travel has been invented. Digest this first.
A looper's job is sourced from a powerful gangster group from 30 years in the future. A looper is a gangland executioner cum body-disposal garbage man for this boss from 30 years in the future. The gangsters send back the victim who is shot by the looper the instant they appear, materializing out of nowhere. The execution ground is usually some deserted wilderness near KC. After collecting the pay in the form of silver bars strapped to the back of the victim, the looper disposes of the body, IN 2044. You can see how neat this is for the gangsters 30 years in the future – an absolutely water-tight murder with no possible trace of evidence whatsoever as the disposal usually takes the form to complete incineration.
Now this is how this movie is so clever. Don't underestimate the significance of the two-step operation: killing and body-disposal. The gangsters-30-year-in-future may well have done the killing themselves before sending the body back to 2044 for disposal. It would be slightly less satisfactory but almost as effective in wiping out murder evidence. The key is that the time travel is always ONE-WAY-TRAFFIC, of a DEAD BODY for all intent and purposes. The time-travel paradox of seeing yourself is therefore clever avoided. And even if you take the killing into consideration, it is almost flawless, because killing someone from 30 years in the future will not affect anything in the present.
Almost flawless. Now we come to something call "closing the loop". The loopers continue to live on and will one day reach 30-years-in-the-future. This, the gangster are well aware of. While you may ask "what's the problem", the gangsters consider that situation an unnecessary risk. A looper, just like the other enemies of the gangsters, is abducted and sent back to be executed, BY HIMSELF. Because the victims are hooded, the looper does not know that he is killing the version of himself from 30 years in the future, until after the execution and he finds that the pay (strapped to the back of the victim, remember?) is much more lucrative than from a regular job, allowing him to live out the remaining 30 years of life in comfort and luxury.
Here's the catch. The ultimate objective is body disposal. Whether the killing is done in the future or done in 2044 matters little – so long as in the latter case the killing is instantaneous upon the materializing of the victim. But..when things do not go according to plan, all hell breaks loose.
100% SPOILER from here on – be warned!!! Joe's future self (let's call him old-Joe, played by Bruce Willis) comes back, unlike in normal cases, neither hooded nor fettered, knocked Joe cold and is on the loose. What happens (in the future, from the POV of the audience who is naturally routed with Joe) is that during old-Joe's time, a mysterious character with supernatural power called Rainmaker comes into power and proceeds to close all loops, with old-Joes beloved wife becoming collateral damage. Old-Joe breaks free from the gangsters, sends himself back, intending to track down Rainmaker (as a kid) and kills him to save his wife. Joe just wants status quo and sets out to find and protect Rainmaker, intending to kill old-Joe when he shows up to claim his prey.
Rainmaker is a 10-year-old kid living with single mother Sara (Emily Blunt). The second half of the movie plays out in a desolate farm house surrounded by eerie corn field in the middle of nowhere in Kansas where Joe and Sara prepare for old-Joe's arrival, a climatic finale that one critic aptly described as "intellectually satisfying and emotionally powerful". This has to be seen to be fully appreciated.
All three leads are superb. Willis is finding a new cinematic life, as fully demonstrated by "Moonrise kingdom" and this movie. Blunt is as versatile an actress as you can find, portraying anything from a Victorian royalty (a as matter of fact, the very person herself) to an earthy tornado country farmer. Her excellent portrayal of an imperfect but ultimately devoting mother reminds me of Toni Collette in "The sixth sense" (incidentally, another Bruce Willis movie). But top mark goes to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who absolutely shines behind (and despite) the strange face prosthetics that is supposed to make him more believable as Bruce Willis at thirty years younger.