Looper review

Since 2005, I have said “have you seen Brick?” Everyone on planet earth answers, “No.” It is a source of depression and frustration to me that they have not seen one of my favorite films of all time. The dialogue in this film is the fastest, most intriguing, and brilliant dialogue in any film I have seen. If you blink, you’ll miss half the nuance. It is a film noir detective story, full of drugs and prostitutes, mob bosses and addicts, with a murder-mystery enigma, all set in a high school, with teenagers. Why am I mentioning this film? Maybe because like any good hipster, I am going to say, I liked Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (before they were mainstream).

Rian Johnson wrote and directed Brick and Looper. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a looper. Looper is another mixed genre film, part mob movie, part science-fiction/time travel flick. Looper takes place in 2044, where Levitt plays a hitman, who kills people sent back from 30 years in their future. In this future, time travel has been invented and is used by the mob to dispose of unwanted people. Hey, if they send back your older self, you end up killing yourself. Is your brain humming yet? Just wait! That’s only the first five minutes. This movie has a lot more left to bake your noodle with.

I have to say, this film paints a bleak future - there are no ivory towers of wonderful technology - everything looks messed up and run down. You see homelessness everywhere, and the people are despicable for most part. This scenery has really nothing to do with the plot, it just sets the tone for film. Graphic deaths and gunshots with jarring sound effects; this is a “real” future.    

    This is one of the more interesting science fiction films in the past years. Very interesting twists and turns, compelling ideas on time travel and how you can change the past. My brain will be swimming in a pool of science fiction “what ifs” for days. The plot is the best part of this film, and holy crap its dark. Brace yourself - its going to get get bloody, violent, and twisted, but man it’s good.
    Where the film lacks, in my view, is that I never really root for any character. Who is the protagonist? Joe (Levitt) and Old Joe (Willis) both have their own plot and motivation for doing things. This is good and bad, as you don’t really know how to feel about them. Should Joe kill himself from the future? Told you it would get dark.

Both Joes’ are just kind of terrible people, so it’s really hard to like present and future Joe. There are some slow parts here and there that could have been shorn up, but for the most part very entertaining and good pacing. (Small Spoiler Alert) Bruce Willis must have it in his contract that he must be a badass, because future Joe kicks everyone’s asses, just so you know. It could have been so simple to forget Old Joe’s story, but I am very happy with how that was portrayed. 

I hope Rian Johnson keeps making bigger and better films, and I’ll keep watching them. This film doesn’t quite measure up to Brick in my book, just a different film, and it will be hard to top. It’s a solid film but from what I can tell in seven years, future Patrick will be asking people if they have every seen Looper, and I will probably get “No”, but who really knows the future.

The Rating System
Production (Directing, Editing, Music) 4-5
Story (Plot) 5-5
Characters (Likability, Acting) 3-5
Writing (Dialogue, Cleverness) 4-5
Emotions (Was it; Fun, Scary, Sad, Do I care) 4-5
Overall Score: 20-25