“Looper” is a polished action sci-fi about time travel with enough stylish coolness, emotional depth and narrative elegance to be an instant classic.
Most time travel films fall flat because the rules of the sci-fi are so dense that they collapse under the weight of their own paradoxes. Rian Johnson’s (“Brick”) film makes the characters, their story and their psychology the most important parts, allowing the film’s rules to become an integral part of a well-oiled machine.
In the future, when the mob needs to dispose of a body, they use time travel to cover their tracks, sending a victim back in time to be murdered where the body can’t be traced. The hit men responsible for these killings are Loopers, people on a contract with the mob until a set time when that person is sent back in time to be killed by their past selves, thus closing the loop of responsibility.
The youngest Looper in 2046 Kansas is Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and he discovers that a new mob boss in the future is terminating all the Looper contracts. When his future self (Bruce Willis) comes back in time to be killed, he hesitates, and Future Joe escapes, launching him on a mission to kill the mob boss responsible for killing his wife by stopping him before he comes to power.
There are many ways this plot could veer and become something other than the accessible, exciting genre picture it is. Continue reading “Looper”