Looper (2012)

Looper was writer and director Rian Johnson's third feature film and first major success.  A major departure from the movie he had done prior, it required immense worldbuilding, a major amount of attention to making the time travel plot plausible and the ability to do so on only a moderate budget.  However, it was a gamble that paid off in major ways for Johnson, at least in the short term.

Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a looper, which is basically a hired assassin who takes care of people that a crime syndicate 30 years in the future wants gone.  They send them back to his time - a dismal, dystopian United States in 2044 - to be shot, for which he earns silver bars that he can spend.  What he mainly spends it on is whores and drugs, but it's because he knows that, in the end, he will have to close his own loop.  That means ultimately killing an older version of himself.

When Joe's friend Seth (Paul Dano) faces just that and fails he is asked by local crime boss Abe (Jeff Daniels) to give him up, which he reluctantly does.  However, his time soon comes as well - only the older Joe (Bruce Willis) is prepared.  He attacks his younger self and escapes, thus making them both a target of Abe and his eager enforcer, a "gat man" named Kid Blue (Noah Segan).  The reason that Joe has come back and has changed the timeline from his own normal death is that a crime boss called the Rainmaker is closing all the loops, and the older Joe has a personal vendetta.  It also turns out that the Rainmaker is currently alive and living in the same area where the younger Joe lives, leading him to protect a woman named Sara (Emily Blunt) and her young boy Cid (Pierce Gagnon) from both Abe and his older self.

Johnson does his best to provide a plausible version of time travel, one in which things done to the younger self affect the older, and where the human mind finds itself trying to deal with the loss of old memories and creation of new as things change.  Unlike many time travel films Johnson's universe is one where going back and killing one's grandfather would have the effect of removing a person from existence, although the idea of paradox is not really explored too much other than Abe being concerned that certain actions might alter things too much. 

There is also another added element which takes over the last third of the film.  A significant amount of the public has developed telekinesis.  There is no explanation as to why, but they have, and about all they can do is levitate a quarter as a parlor trick.  However, it turns out that there are some that can do much more, and the question about whether or not Cid should be allowed to survive into the future becomes a similar one to if one could kill Hitler.  

Looper is not a happy film by any stretch and few of the characters have any redeeming value.  Joe himself is a junky who, even after closing his own loop, becomes a professional assassin until he finds a woman (Qing Xu) who changes his life.  Johnson had some backing from a Chinese business on the movie which allowed him to do some filming in Shanghai, where it is hinted that China has become the world's economic superpower at that point.  It makes for a somewhat realistic look at the future, with a criminal elite running most U.S. cities and a good portion of the country still reeling from what sounds like an uprising of the poor as a result.  Many of the cars are repurposed models from the '90s with solar panels or other fuel sources fitted on to them to keep them on the road. 

As a result of the success of this movie Johnson was one of many young, independent film directors that suddenly found themselves given something they could have never expected.  While he is not primarily a science fiction director, he was given the chance to direct Star Wars: The Last Jedi and its sequel, only to have the latter taken away from him due to fan backlash.  Whether it be in Looper or Knives Out Johnson has a particular, quirky style of writing.  Although Star Wars fans had been asking for something different for a long time they pretty much rebelled when Johnson gave it to them.  As a result Looper has become a bit of a victim as well, being reassessed by those who now have a vendetta against Johnson.  Unlike most directors saddled with a major property he never succumbed to the toxic fandom, finding greater success with his Benoit Blanc character.

However, upon seeing it again, the sudden switch in tone from a high-minded science fiction concept set against a bleak future to almost a fantasy film is a bit jarring, particularly as the movie slows down significantly for the last portion.  There is still enough going on to keep the interest but it feels like a good portion of it could have been shaved without losing the moral dilemma or the impact of the ending.  

Looper (2012)

Time: 119 minutes

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Jeff Daniels, Noah Segan, Emily Blunt, Pierce Gagnon

Director: Rian Johnson