Looper—A Film Review

Flashy cars, loud explosions, a beautiful woman…and let's don't forget Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis.  Combined with a gripping story line, it all adds up to one thing: darn good cinema.  I recently had the opportunity to see Rian Johnson's new action-thriller Looper, which lived up to its hype.  Naturally and unsurprisingly, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was spot on as Joe, a hired gun or "Looper" in the not-too-distant future, a world where time travel does not yet exist, but soon will.  Joe works for the mob, killing off targets sent from thirty years in the future with his "blunderbus," a shoddy weapon that is only effective in close range.  In an era where action heroes, from James Bond to Jason Bourne always seem to be equipped with the best of the best, it was an exciting twist having the film's hero as poorly armed as possible.


The film heroically avoided many of the usual pitfalls so commonly seen in this genre.  Emily Blunt, as Sara, the film's leading lady, was neither helpless nor on screen simply to show off her cleavage.  (There was more than enough of that to be had elsewhere in the film.)  She played a smart and relate-able  character who was even easier to root for than Joe himself.

Perhaps more importantly, the special effects work to enhance the film, rather than distracting from it.  In a crucial scene in which we find out what happens to a Looper who fails to kill off his future self, a.k.a. "fails to close his loop."  Rather than dwelling on gore and screaming, the film combines impressive specials and the wise tactic of leaving most of the brutality up to the imagination—one of the most effective scare tactics known to man.

There were perhaps only two major flaws with the film.  First, the CGI alteration of Gordon-Levitt's face to look more like Bruce Willis, his 30-year-older self.  While it was very well done, if they were going to employ this device, it would have been more sensible to cast two unknowns, rather than Gordon-Levitt and Willis.  Because the majority of the audience is so familiar with these actors' faces, the alterations felt superfluous and even had the counter-effect of throwing the audience out of the film, rather than convincing them that Gordon-Levitt will one day look exactly like Bruce Willis.

The second problem was the pseudo-science of the film.  While on the one hand they didn't waste time with expositional explanation of time travel—which was neither needed nor missed—the final conflict resolution for the film (which don't worry, I won't spoil for you) involved a massive paradox.  While it worked brilliantly story-wise, it was such a gaping scientific flaw that it left you having to actively work to silence an insistent voice in your head, trying to point out to you, "But that couldn't work!  It doesn't make sense anymore!"

But it's worth the effort to squelch that voice, as paradox or not, the movie doesn't disappoint.