Interesting yet lacking...

Rating: Null/10 (24 August 2014)

'Looper' has all of the potential of an awesome sci-fi film: Time-travel and hit men mixed with a splash of gangster politics. The execution of this concept does suffer in some areas, most notably the make-up used to transform Joseph Gordon-Levitt into a young Bruce Willis (The make-up is extraordinarily bad in many shots ,especially in the lip area, many times appearing too red). The poor make-up detracts from Gordon-Levitt's otherwise great performance. 'Loopers' are hit men that execute mob enemies that have been brought back through time, thereby erasing their future existence completely. The time travel concept is used here in a very similar fashion as it was in 'Twelve Monkeys' (1995) which also starred Bruce Willis. Gordon- Levitt plays a young mob hit-man in the year 2044 who is assigned to kill his future self in order to "close his loop". The screenplay is original and exciting however, poor casting choices for many supporting characters brings it down to the level of a mediocre action flick. It's a shame that a great actor like Jeff Daniels is given very little to work with as a two-dimensional mob boss. The standout is Gordon-Levitt himself, he clearly worked hard to capture many of Bruce Willis' subtle idiosyncrasies and mannerisms. Writer-Director Rian Johnson shows promise in this major feature ,but clearly his best work is ahead of him. 'Looper' had the potential to be one of the great new sci-fi films, instead, it leaves you thinking of a dozen ways it could have turned out a heckuva lot better.