Movie review: 'Looper': What goes around comes around

Whether you believe in fate, physics, or predestination paradoxes, the basic idea holds that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Rarely has this proven to be truer—or more expertly imagined—than in writer-director Rian Johnson’s (“The Brothers Bloom”) latest film, “Looper.”

 

The main conceit here is one that wouldn’t be out of place in a Harlan Ellison novel: In 2044, there are underworld hitmen known as “loopers.” As the story opens, time travel hasn’t been invented yet—but we are told numerous times in dialogue that it will be—and it is through the use of this quickly-outlawed future technology that the titular loopers come in. 

 

When the mob wants someone eliminated, they simply zap the poor soul back in time to 2044, where a designated looper will be waiting at an appointed place and hour to end their existence with a well-placed shotgun blast—no fuss, no muss. The hitmen are well-compensated for their efforts, but are well aware that their tenure is finite; sooner or later, the future mob will send back the final witness to their crimes, and the loopers’ final assignment will be to “close the loop” by executing their future selves.

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who also appeared in Johnson’s directorial debut, “Brick”) plays Joe, a looper in the year 2044. Self-assured and frugal, he awaits the day when he can close his loop and live out the rest of his life spending his ill-gotten wealth. Joe’s off-hours are spent getting high on designer drugs and visiting his girlfriend, Suzie (“Coyote Ugly”’s Piper Perabo, in a throwaway role), at a club that doubles as the loopers’ headquarters. 

 

All of Joe’s well-laid plans are derailed when his future self comes into the picture (played by an appropriately-grizzled Bruce Willis) with a decided unwillingness to die. From the moment Willis shows up, what follows is a tense game of cat and mouse as each man fights tooth and nail to protect what they believe is rightfully theirs.  

Now, it would be all too easy to make the obvious pun and describe what “Looper” threw this reviewer for, but that would be doing Johnson a disservice, as this, his third film, is anything but obvious. What starts out as your typical temporal paradox gangster movie becomes something else entirely the second the story—and the audience—is thrown a telekinetic curveball from way out of left field. 

 

This is an old-fashioned sci-fi yarn at its speculative best—an intricate tale of cause and effect, its plot held together with notions of amorality, excess, mortality and love. From the time he was recruited by mob boss Abe (Jeff Daniels), to the inevitable day when he must close his loop, Joe’s world has been one of brutality, with ugly people doing ugly things. 

 

Inherent violence notwithstanding, this is not a film for those expecting shootouts, explosions (though it has no shortage of those) and flying cars. The violence here—like the people perpetrating it—is ugly and efficient, depicted in perfunctory bursts, rather than extended sequences.

 

Visually, there is nothing idealistic about the world of “Looper.” While there is the occasional flying motorcycle, the manner in which Johnson and his team have chosen to flesh out the future worlds of 2044 and 2074 is more minimalist than futurist, never going to the extremes—beloved as they are—of “Back to the Future 2”’s fanciful 2015 or, conversely, “Blade Runner”’s post-apocalyptic dystopia of 2019. 

 

As sci-fi stripped down to its bare essentials, the story Johnson has crafted here has more in common—tonally and in execution—with Carruth’s “Primer” and Gilliam’s “12 Monkeys” (the latter of which, coincidentally, also starred Willis as a reluctant time traveler). Without the usual genre trappings to fall back on, the actors have only the script to rely on and they prove themselves more than up to the task; performances here are excellent, with Gordon-Levitt, in particular, standing out.

 

As the younger Joe, the “Inception” star wisely eschews attempting an impersonation or imitation, going instead for what can best be described as a suggestion of his elder co-star. Good thing, too, for the daily, three-hour make-up process (featuring colored contact lenses and prosthetics designed by an initially-skeptical Kazuhiro Tsuji—of “Benjamin Button” fame—to change the shapes of Gordon-Levitt’s head, lips, cheekbones and hairline, along with the angles of his eyebrows and ears) used to transform him into Bruce Willis of 30 years ago isn’t all that convincing, coming across as downright off-putting in some shots and eerily artificial in others.

 

Bruce Willis plays the elder Joe with a world-weariness befitting one who’s lived and learned from his younger self’s (yet-to-be-experienced) decadence. Nowhere to be found is the smirking wiseass that Willis can play in his sleep. The only classic Willis trait remaining here is the look of dogged determination in his eyes that tells young Joe (and the audience) from their first encounter that this is a man ready to move mountains to protect what he cares for, regardless of cost or consequence. 

 

The strengths of the actors—to say nothing of Johnson’s directorial and narrative convictions—are able to overcome the iffy makeup, reaching their zenith during a sequence where the two Joes encounter each other in a brightly-lit diner. Without the smokescreens of pyrotechnics or quick cuts to hide behind, it falls to Willis and Gordon-Levitt to sell the scene, and they do. The scene—and, by extension, the movie—works. 

 

Exquisitely-written and performed, this scene, more than any other, sells the viewer on the idea that a future might very well exist where one could have a terse, low-key battle of wills with oneself, 30 years removed. The scene is well worth the price of admission, giving the rest of the film a sense of gravitas well-earned, and that, in itself, is a far more impressive feat than making any number of cars fly. –KG, GMA News

 

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment