Super Looper

Rating: 7/10 (1 October 2012)

It's not fair to simply call Looper a brainy time-travel movie, because it's so much deeper than that. It's like Inception, only much less convoluted; provocative without being overwrought. It's the odd time- travel movie that understands the limitations inherent in the genre and not only doesn't gloss over them, it embraces them and makes them part of the fun. I found it so engrossing that I actually overthought one element of the story, thinking it meant something when it turned out not to.
The year is 2044, and life sucks just about everywhere. Cities are slums. Even cornfields aren't safe from ravaging hobos. It's bleak, like most futures are in the movies. Time travel, we're told, hasn't been invented yet. But by 2074, it will have been. And in 2074, the government is so on top of things that the bleakness of 2044 looks Paradisal by comparison. They outlaw time travel so that only outlaws can time travel. In this case, that would be organized crime. When they want someone to disappear permanently like, they send him back in time to 2044, where an assassin shoots him dead. Much more fun than dumping his body in the Pine Barrens. This erases all trace of the dearly departed. Clean, tidy.
The assassins are called Loopers. They don't know who they're shooting. Their prey arrives on a blanket at a particular time and place, head covered in a bag, hands bound. The Looper shoots, turns the victim over, and claims his pay in silver bars, which are big in 2044.
Loopers have one standing order: don't let your man get away. Shoot to kill. Even if he's you. And that's the crux of this thriller, when Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds himself face to face with...well, himself. His 2074 self, Old Joe (Bruce Willis). Yup, that's who the mob's sent back. This is known as closing the loop, and it means your contract's been terminated. Oh, you can live your life as long as you want, but you won't be a cold assassin anymore, which kind of stinks. At any rate, there's more to it than just a loop closure. Old Joe promptly escapes his execution and is a man on a mission. He needs to kill someone in 2044 so that they don't become someone bad in 2074. That's a mission we can all get behind, right?
Young Joe, for lack of a better distinction, has troubles of his own. First, he isn't supposed to be free, what with his victim getting away (the entire city is looking for him). Second, he's a junkie, hooked on some future drug that you drop into your eyeballs. His own men are looking for him, he needs to find Bruce Willis, and what the heck does all of this have to do with the future, anyway? Man, a whole lot, it turns out, a whole lot.
Let me put it this way. At first, you think Old Joe is just on a personal vendetta - which he is. But it's more than that. What he wants to do could make things a heck of a lot better in good ol 2074. But that conflicts with what Young Joe has in mind, which is to finish his job and take off for France (don't ask).
The movie is existential. How did Old Joe get in the position of being sent back by the mob? He IS Joe, after all, and the Joe we know seems to have his head on his shoulders. What happens? Bad stuff, apparently. But back to the existentiality of it all. Let's pose a question - if you had a chance to kill a future terrorist, would you? Is the answer an easy one? What if the baby future terrorist wouldn't become said terrorist if certain branches in his life had led to different conclusions? The old time-travel movies make it much simpler: if you see yourself in the future, that screws things up. If old you kills young you, that means you're dead, too. This movie mashes all of that together and strips out the boring parts. That makes for a really intelligent sci-fi thriller. Tough to find.
Twists abound. I can't even begin to describe one without giving away another. Heck, Young Joe's not even a really sympathetic character. I mean, he's a nice guy, but the man sells out his friend within the first ten minutes of the movie, so he's not super awesome. Plus did I mention he's a cold-blooded killer? He is. And he is constantly faced with the consequences, ever unreeling, of not only his actions but those of Old Joe and countless other characters. Turns upon turns, a Moebius strip of plot lines.
What's really at the center of the movie, the most terrifying aspect, isn't even touched on until the movie's mostly over. You think the blunderbuss that Young Joe has or the Glock that Old Joe procures are bad-ass weapons? There's another one much worse. I'm talking Stephen King worse. Oh yes.
Both Gordon-Levitt and Willis (who do resemble each other here) give commanding, top-notch performances. Earnest without being dull; determined without being infallible. Unheroic, except sometimes. They're strongly supported by Jeff Daniels as Gordon-Levitt's boss, Paul Dano as Young Joe's best friend, and Emily Blunt as the mother of a small, strange child.
Looper is an awe-inspiring movie, the one that continues to resonate well after the curtain's fallen. What does it mean? Well, it's easier to pinpoint the meaning here than in movies like The Tree of Life and other New-Age nonsense, but it's the kind of movie that wisely leaves questions unanswered. And the last scene is a powerful, poignant, delicious ending. It ain't the best movie in the world (there are some unanswered questions that really should have been answered), but it's damn good among its genre.