Futuristic thriller where the crooks control time travel.

Rating: Null/10 (29 January 2013)

I mostly watch movies for entertainment. I like this one because it is very entertaining. After seeing literally thousands of movies I am always glad to see something novel, something never done before. Set mostly in 2044 Kansas, but filmed mostly in the sugar cane fields of Louisiana, the actors and characters are first-rate. But it is not a movie to be watched casually, paying half-attention. It is easy to miss something and get confused.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Young Joe, sent from the future, a "looper" whose only job is to be at a certain place at a certain time, and using an old-fashioned blunderbuss kill the hooded person sent via time-travel from 30 years in the future. Since time-travel has been outlawed these are always criminals that need disposal without a trace. That is, if they are executed 30 years earlier, in essence they never existed. The dead person has silver bars attached to his back, the looper takes this as payment for his services. If he executes his old self, he gets gold bars then is free to travel and live for 30 years.
One day Bruce Willis as Old Joe shows up, unhooded and unbound, sent from the future to be terminated. They called this "closing the loop." But when Young Joe recognizes his older self he hesitates, and Old Joe gets the best of him and runs away. Now both of them are in trouble with the mob, and the rest of the film has them both on the run to survive. It gets really interesting when they start to meet face-to-face. But Old Joe also has a mission, his wife was killed because of the "Rainmaker" and now he has a code that will allow him to track down the young boy who will become the future Rainmanker and kill him to preserve things in the future, where the Rainmaker is also closing all loops!
A very interesting movie for those who enjoy a good time-travel fantasy and can overlook some possible disconnects. But you have to pay attention!
SPOILERS FOLLOW: Soon after we see the Young and Old Joe encounter, we see what amounts to a flashback, to a time 30 years earlier where Young Joe actually does kill Old Joe, collects his gold bars, and travels to China where he spends his money and grows old, turns to a life of more crime when he goes broke, meets his wife, and then gets rounded up to be sent back for execution. But he escapes, takes off the hood, and returns with plans to hunt down the child who will become the Rainmaker. They find Emily Blunt as Sara who has a 5-yr-old boy, Pierce Gagnon, really very good as Cid with extreme TK powers, and who we eventually learn is destined to become the Rainmaker, as a direct result of seeing his mother killed and then not being nurtured properly. At the climax in the cane field, while Old Joe is trying to kill both Cid and Sara, Young Joe realizes the solution, so he shoots himself through the heart, Old Joe disappears, Sara and Cid survive.