Looper Review

In a movie age brimming with mindless action flicks bent on reeling in thousands with little ingenuity or thought required, movies like ‘’Looper’’ often have a hard time earning their place in the box office. How fitting then that ‘’Looper’’ absolutely needs your attention, breaking the boundaries and offering one of the most ingenious film experiences you’ll have this year.

The year is a post-economic collapsed 2044 and a secret underground organisation of assassins works to eliminate targets sent back through time by the mobs of the future. Joe Simmons (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is one of many Loopers who without question, gun down nameless individuals in a secluded area and collect the silver bars strapped to them as their pay. Things turn for the worst in Joe’s routine life when ‘’The Rainmaker’’ leader of the mob decides to terminate his contract sending back his future self (Played by Bruce Willis). Joe cannot bring himself to pull the trigger on his own future and so begins a race to escape his fellow assassins who are now hunting him and stopping Old Joe from fulfilling his vendetta against the mob. What seemed like a clichéd plot to me at first became an incredibly intriguing narrative as the film alternates between the present day Joe and his future alter ego sometimes crossing paths to brilliant effect. Just when you grow tired of these flashbacks, the sequences swap to bouncing back and forth between Joe who seeks solitude in Sara Rollins (Emily Blunt) farm in the country while Old Joe moves about the city of Kansas, mercilessly assassinating all possible links to the Rainmaker.  Tension is heightened even further by the prying eyes of the ‘’Loopers’’ hounding both versions of Joe at every turn. It all comes full circle in the film’s climax, a shocking and emotional conclusion that stands as the complete opposite to how young Joe was at the beginning of the film and completely alters the future Old Joe fought to create.

Such a complex plot would be meaningless if the characters populating it were not deep enough; I’m glad to say that both versions of Joe are given equal attention backstory. Young Joe begins as quite the outcast from society; earning his pay from murder and taking his pleasures from strip clubs has made him a highly bitter character that even turns on his own friend instead of risking the loss of his precious stash of silver bars. Likewise we are made fully aware of Old Joe’s burning desire for revenge on those who destroyed his peaceful life after retiring from the ‘’Loopers’’. Sara Rollins begins as a struggling mother desperate to earn the affection of her young son Cid, who is definitely more than meets the eye, unusually smart and capable of violent telekinetic outbursts as revealed in the second half of the film. The villains standing against Joe are simplified yet fully capable and threatening; Kid Blue (Noah Segan) makes the biggest impression, always in the shadow of the more efficient ‘’loopers’’ and always waiting for the chance to rise above them. By contrast Seth Richards (Paul Dano) is a nervous wreck, terrified of the consequences that befall those who fail to assassinate their future selves and begging Joe to give him the chance to escape. In doing so Richards for the brief time he is featured puts across the corruption present in the Kansas mob.

While the 2044 vision of Kansas may only include the occasional glimpse of future technology, this is grounded in the economic collapse that plagues the country at the time. All the cheap run down living that takes place manages to contribute depth to the criminal underworld young Joe has been a part of for so long. Despite it not being developed very far and seemingly only added in for special effects purposes the sequences of telekinesis at the hands of Cid including the blast inside Sara’s house and the truck flip towards the film’s ending do much to convey the destructive force that the young boy possesses. The tense music that creeps into the background of every chase scene is matched only by the sombre and emotional solos that intervene in both flash-forwards to Old Joe’s life and the tenderness between Sara and Cid, perfectly complimenting the theme of family present throughout the film.

   

Movies like ‘’Looper’’ are a rarity in cinema but when something of this scale finally releases to engage your mind and spark your wonder it becomes obvious that it goes a step above almost every other movie currently in theatres. The complex plot may be difficult for everyone to digest but for all who go to the cinema for more than just basic plotlines and endless explosions, ‘’Looper’’ delivers a unique and profound viewing experience that is like nothing else this year.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars