A lot of loopholes (no pun intended), but still pretty entertaining

Rating: 7/10 (12 December 2012)

"Looper" is a science fiction film about assassins who kill people sent from the future. It is the middle of the 21st Century and time travel has not been invented yet. It was though twenty years from the film's present and in the process got outlawed. Since then, the only people who accessed the technology was the underworld and they would send the ones to be killed to the past as if they never existed. The assassins who kill these targets of the future are known as "loopers". Joe (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt) is a looper and the film centres around his last assignment which is to kill his older self (played by Bruce Willis). As you can imagine, a film with such a plot line would have a lot of holes in it that it couldn't avoid, but the great thing about this film is that it distracts it's audience from that with exemplary camera-work, an Oscar-worthy screenplay, riveting editing and realistic acting (considering the circumstances) to create one of the best films of the year. Directed by Rian Johnson, the film is one of the most innovative pieces of the year and has put it's young Director as one of the film- makers to look out for in the future. Joseph Gordon Levitt seems to grow with every role he gets and is really evolving into an actor who it seems will be around for some time to come and he gives his career's best performance (IMO). He does so by grasping the roots of his character with an exemplary understanding of his motives which results into one of the most measured and realistic performances of the year. His role reminded me a lot of Gosling's driver but even though it was not as powerful, it played with similar character aspects with a more chaotic interpretation as was required. He is well supported by Emily Blunt, Jeff Bridges and Bruce Willis who goes back to his roots that made him popular but with an angle which was far more different than the people he has been known to portray. There is also a great cameo by the criminally overlooked Paul Dano as well. Willis' performance, however, was the surprise of the film even though it was not as unexpected as his turn in Sixth Sense. His walk through familiar territory was done with motives which could easily have been transformed into something cheesy but he managed to do that by balancing his darkness that proved the catalyst for his passion. The other great performance is given by another actor who I should not mention because to do so would spoil it for people who have not seen it. All in all, "Looper" is definitely one of the best films of the year and it is a movie which will have you hanging on to your seats till it ends. It does have a lot of holes in it which you are bound to expect from a film which deals with such a unique vision on the time-travel context.The fact that it makes you overlook them with it's quality film-making is a testament to Rian Johnson and the production built around to tell such a complex tale by using the basic fundamentals of story-telling is what made it mind blowing.