Ignore the trailers. Well most of them anyway, aside from
the premise and setting they have the unfortunate habit of showing Looper to be some extensive action. The
few moments of outright violence in the film are brilliantly done but it takes
the same approach to fights as Quentin Tarantino does: As little as possible
but excellently delivered. With that understood, this is not only the greatest
science fiction movie of 2012 but one of the best of the last decade.
The story itself takes some time to get going with much of
the first and second act spent building up the world around the protagonist.
It’s a deeply pessimistic dystopia which seems to be an exaggeration of our future
and current fears. The core-most of
these is the dominance of crime throughout the world, shown through the
everyday life of Joe Simmons who, in order to fuel his high life of excess, has
a job as a looper. A hired executioner employed to kill and dispose of those
who cross various criminal cartels thirty years into the future, after time
travel is created. However, something goes wrong when Simmons encounters his
future self sent back to him, who promptly breaks free and disappears, causing
his employers to turn against him. And that is when things really start to get interesting…
The biggest strength of Looper
is that it has an extremely talented production crew and the writing talents of
Rian Johnson, which are taken full advantage of both in building-up the world.
Almost every aspect of every scene is shown to somehow disturb or inform the
audience of how truly screwed-up the planet is. These range from minor
background elements such as contemporary cars having been converted to run on solar
powered panels to the sharp contrasts between the destitute and rich districts
of the city. Even when it comes to the characters this is almost continuously
present with the most reasonable and controlled force in the entire film shown
to be the ruthless mobsters Simmons works for. Best of all is how these are
frequently integrated into the story. With things like the gruesome use of
mutilation and a past self to control rogue loopers being called back to as a
device to build tension later in the film and establish how flexible the rules
of time travel are in this world.
The script manages to involve these, expand upon a world to
degree rarely seen within many films. Yet at the same time it remains extremely
tightly written and contains characters which, while not greatly deep or outstandingly
complex, are well rounded and presented in a light which makes them feel
extremely human. What definitely helps the most with this is the calibre of
actors present and, again, Rian Johnson. While having only a few films to his
name Johnson has frequently displayed significant skills when it comes to
writing dialogue and character motivations, just see Brick to witness this in action, and he has definitely put his
A-game into this. The short montage used to show how the older Simmons changed
and his motivations for what he is doing last mere minutes, show decades of his
life in seconds. Yet these are so well crafted that you feel more for the
character in this time than you would protagonists in the entire run-times of
lesser films.
While the dialogue and writing are both very strong, their
high quality is only amplified by the actors who take centre stage in this. The
marketing campaign for the film focused heavily upon its two leads, Joseph
Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis who play the younger and older incarnations of
Simmons respectively, and with good reason. Aside from their star power both
bring their accomplished talents to the screen with one of the film’s greatest
scenes simply being them sitting and talking. Even without taking into account
Gordon-Levitt’s facial editing to make him look more like Willis, the two
deliver performances which clearly enforce the idea that they are the same
person but at different points in their lives. There’s effectively no time when
you’re not thinking of them as their characters. Beyond them however the other roles
are played by similarly talented individuals in minor and major roles. Notably Emily
Blunt and Jeff Daniels, the former of who showed great skill in developing what
was initially presented to be a very one dimensional character and the latter
who serves as the face of the criminal forces in Looper’s world. Also quite possibly the greatest child actor I’ve
ever seen.
While everything from the initial script to the
cinematography to the acting makes this a great, very well defined, film it’s
not without its flaws. While it remains strong throughout, the last half an
hour has a number of very glaring problems in its story as if someone else had
to finish the tale for Johnson. The most obvious of these comes in the last
five minutes where a time paradox comes into effect which, even taking into
account the very flexible laws of time travel established in Looper, would have cancelled out everything.
What’s more is that a very big plot point, one of the driving forces behind the
whole film is never explained. Detailed yes, talked about as well and very well
presented but the film never goes into how it occurred. Honestly though, these
two flaws aren’t so big you’ll see them when watching the film. Directly after
perhaps but its level of presentation, quality of acting and attention to minor
details helps keep it enjoyable even after this point.
While the film ends on a relatively weak note in comparison
to how it started, there’s still no denying that it’s well worth seeing. The
quality of the story and the direction it takes is something we’ve not seen
since Inception. It is so well made
you could give it to a film tutor and use Looper
on its own to give lectures about storytelling and structure. If you can’t see
it in the cinema, definitely buy this one on DVD.
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Looper and all related characters and media are owned by FilmDistrict.
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