Dull, Trite, Overrated

Rating: 2/10 (10 May 2013)

We start with an introduction to Loopers, future hit men, hired by the future mob, who travel back in time and wait for their mob cohorts to send some poor tied-up, blindfolded sap back in time directly in front of them. Then the Looper shoots the victim. Seems like a convoluted way of pulling off a murder in a future where time travel exists in the first place, but OK. The movie does make an attempt to justify this (Everyone is subject to 24/7 FUTURE TRACKING, so the body cannot be disposed of or the future cops will be all over it.... or something I guess?).
Sounds like a pretty simple job, but there's a catch! Time travel is illegal, and the mob doesn't want to break time traveling laws,(why the mob cares about this law when they are murdering people, who knows, another example of the characters actions being built around the plot) so at some point the Looper's future self will be sent back in time for the same Looper to murder. The Looper would never know if he was offing himself, this could have been a nifty concept to explore.
Our main character, Joseph Gorden-Levitt (Joe), is one of these Loopers. In addition to Looper-ing he also likes to do future drugs, and bone some stripper. The stripper is never important, nor are the drugs, actually nothing that happens for the first half hour matters. It exists solely to explain what Loopers are.
So Joe kills some people and stashes his silver bars. Then he does some drugs, then talks to the stripper, but she is working, so he does some more drugs and kills some people. Then Joe goes to bone the stripper, but first does some drugs and talks about his silver bars, then the editing is bad and I stopped paying attention for a bit, but when I came back he was doing drugs, then he shot Bruce Willis.
Joe is talking to his Looper buddy. Buddy Looper just got back from a job where he failed to kill his future self. He tells Joe that a mysterious figure known as Rainman is terminating all the Loopers. The mob comes to kill buddy Looper.
Now we see Joe live 30 years of his life (in a montage)as a guy that murders people in the present (again, the only reason Loopers exist is because the FUTURE TRACKING makes disposing of bodies impossible, so this makes no real sense), and is basically an action hero. Joe wakes up as Bruce Willis one day. Then an Asian women flips off Bruce Willis, he marries her, then she gets shot, he is captured by the mob and sent back in time to be killed by young Joe.
We watch Joe try to kill future Joe again, but future Joe gets away. Uh-oh, this is what got buddy Looper killed. Joe needs to track down his future self and finish the job.
Luckily Bruce Willis and Joe meet up at a diner. Bruce Willis makes a well reasoned argument that the Rainman is going to murder Joe's wife and take his money, so the logical thing to do is team up and stop the Rainman. Joe just wants to shoot Bruce Willis, because his character has zero critical thinking ability. Bruce Willis gets away again.
Joe stumbles onto a farm where a girl who is not the stripper lives. She threatens to shoot vagrants who wonder onto her farm, so Joe leaves. Then Joe comes back carrying his gun, vomits in her yard, so she slaps him and takes him inside to rest.
I guess Bruce Willis has a map bearing the location of the 3 children born on the same day as the Rainman, but Joe ripped one of the thirds of the map off.
Oh yeah, the farm woman has a son, who isn't her son, but then he is again. Joe tells her he is from the future.
Joe explains that Bruce Willis is going to murder these 3 kids to stop the Rainman. The farm woman doesn't really trust/like Joe, but lets him stay to protect her son and herself.
Bruce Willis shots a kid.
Farm woman calls Joe one night for some boning.
The mob is looking for both Joe and Bruce Willis. One mob guy goes to farm, autistic kid blows up mob guy with his mind.
Joe gets mad and says he is going to shoot the kid.
He doesn't.
Bruce Willis goes to kill the second kid, gets caught in an ambush by a mob guy. Mob guy takes Bruce Willis to the mob hideout, Bruce Willis murders all of the mob.
Bruce Willis finds kid, is going to kill kid, Joe is sad, decides to kill himself, Bruce Willis disappears.
The End
Notes:
Bruce Willis is supposed to be the bad guy, but you will find yourself rooting for him as he is the only character with a clear motivation.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character has no goals or motivations, he seems to hate his life, yet will not listen to his future self who offers a clear course to benefit them both. He protects the kid who he knows is the Rainman, which makes no sense as knows that Rainman is going to destroy all Loopers and be Evil. Levitt is a self-absorbed person, who for no reason decides to selfishly sacrifice himself at the end because the story calls for it.
The farmer woman only exists so the child Rainman can enter the plot.
The movie never offers any logic for how time travel works. As central to the plot as time travel is, it would be nice if the movie setup a clear logic, but it never does. Time travel can do anything that is convenient for the plot.