LOOPER

Looper (2012)
Grade: B
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Pierce Gagnon, Noah Segan, Jeff Daniels and Paul Dano
PREMISE: A master assassin who kills criminals sent back through time is forced to make a series of difficult choices when his next marked target is the older version of himself.

Rated R for bloody violence, language, sexual content including nudity, and some disturbing images

Unfortunately, I didn't go into the movie Looper with a clean slate. Though I had only sparingly seen trailers, hadn't read any official reviews, and hadn't had any in-depth conversations with anybody who'd seen it, people's social media venting about this particular well-reviewed sci-fi thriller made it evident that the movie would end on some very dramatic note. "Incredibly sad," one of my friends wrote. "Depressing" said another. So, while I was engaged-and quite interested in-this impressively trippy original work, I was poised the whole time, just waiting for an attempt to wring out my tear ducts. Thus, the last 10 minutes didn't have as much an effect on me as they could have, because I was waiting for them. I'm also not a particularly big fan of dramatic twist endings (I'm still recovering from the last-minute shockers of The Dark Knight Rises and The Usual Suspects). Well, there...now I've gone and ruined your chance of seeing it with no clue. Sorry.

Plot
In 2074, mankind develops the ability to travel back through time. Organized criminals quickly put this technology to use by sending people they want "gone" back through time to be executed. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, under an intricate, impressive set of prosthetics) is one of the hired guns from 2044 who does the killing. Give him a time and a place and he waits patiently, stopwatch in one hand and power-packing shotgun in the other. When a person appears, he blows them away without hesitation. He then disposes of the body and is handsomely rewarded. But then Joe's simple routine of killing and then tripping on eye-injected acid drugs is interrupted when his colleague and best friend Seth (Paul Dano) panics after being sent an older version of himself to kill. Joe wants to help, but when he's backed into a corner by his crime lord/father figure (Jeff Daniels), he gives him up. Wracked with guilt, he has barely begun imagining what would happen if his older self was sent back through time for execution when it happens. His older self (played by Bruce Willis) appears, and he can't recover from his shock quickly enough.

The old man escapes, and promptly sets out on a complicated mission to find and kill the younger version of the dictator running the 2074 crime scene, whose latest victim was his beloved wife (Qing Xu). Meanwhile, the younger Joe, desperate to kill or capture his older self and regain his cozy existence, tracks him to the house of a young mother (Emily Blunt), where he's forced to stop and rest while suffering drug withdrawal. But the crime lord's agents are hot on the case, chasing both the younger Joe and his older self, and the former soon realizes the woman and her young son will be targeted for helping him.

What Works?
The film is very engaging, but the first thing I must talk about is the prosthetic set used to make Joseph Gordon-Levitt resemble a mix of himself and Bruce Willis. While it's not perfect, I became considerably less-obsessed with how real or not-real it looked as I became amazed at the way Joe's eyebrows and nose suggest Willis, while the eyes, mouth and expressions remain Gordon-Levitt's. And that's not to mention the always-admirable Gordon-Levitt is a good enough actor to channel rage, grief and anxiety through the makeup. As far as acting goes, Willis also does an impressive job, and Blunt makes the most of a slightly under-written role.

Looper is very likable, though--an original work with a couple surprises in its back pocket (there's a bit with self-inflicted scars bearing messages that is quite intriguing), and the pace is often furious while the stakes are, of course, sky-high. The idea that both men are hunting themselves never loses its luster.

What Doesn't Work?
One of the key developments--it involves some people's ability to use telekinesis to make things levitate--seems shoe-horned in (it brought to mind M. Night Shyamalan at his laziest), and the last third of the running time contains an overall weird feel that belongs in a different movie. There's also a subplot involving a desperate-to-prove-himself hit man-wannabe (Noah Segan) that is needlessly brought back to life so often throughout the film it's annoying.

Content
While Looper earns its R primarily with four-letter words and bouts of stupendous violence (like one scene where dozens of hitmen are offed by a machine-gun-wielding Willis), there's also one instance of graphic nudity and a few disturbing images related to children in peril.

Bottom Line (I Promise): Neither as sad nor as good as I was expecting, Looper is nonetheless an entertaining and well-made original work.

Looper (2012)
Written for the Screen and Directed by Rian Johnson
Rated R
Length: 118 minutes