Looper

As the present and future selves of Joe sit eating steak and scrambled eggs and discuss remembering names of the waitresses in the hotel they are in, one cant help but wonder at how amazingly complex and delightful Looper is.

Joe played by both Levit and Bruce Willis, is a looper, an asassin who kills future selves of people in present for a gang lord 30 years from the future. It is when his future self comes into his present to undo what would eventually happen to him that Joe hesitates from killing his own future self momentarily ending up in a chase to kill the future self before he gets killed by the powers that be.

Looper is intelligent story telling that doesnt demand much intellectualization while at the same time satisifes those looking for some cerebral credible sci fi. Time travel and Looping is explained simply enough in the beginning of the movie and from then on, it is pretty predictable to how the story would proceed. What does engage however is how the story reaches where it would, combing in the process a chase flick with a decent sci fiction one.

Joseph Levit as the prosthetic enabled younger Bruce Willis effectively sheds his chocolate boy looks and gives in a strong and effective eprformance. Bruce as the older Levit is determined and wise foil. Emily Blunt as the single mother of a ten year old is the other character that stand out in the story.

Ending on an intelligent and a tad moral note, Looper doesnt give a single dull moment in the 118 minutes that it runs for. Though a bit far fetched as a concept, it packs enough action and smartness to impress.

Time-travel isn't exactly a genre but a sub-genre of science fiction. Calling Looper one of the best time-travel movies ever made would sound like a big statement but it would be limiting its accomplishment by tipping it against 40 odd movies (Probably a few more but you know what I mean). Looper is a vastly engaging and endlessly enthralling sci-fi film but it boasts some ideas which elevate the film from being just a genre picture.

The film is set in 2044 where time-travel hasn't been invented yet. But in 2074 it has and when the mob wants someone disposed, he is sent back 30 years to be killed. A clean untraceable job. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis both play Joe. Joe is a looper, a hired gunman but there is a catch. They are required to kill their future self, close the loop and get 30 years to live their lives. Fifteen minutes into the movie I got the first taste of being fascinatingly confused, not knowing what was going on. I could feel two loops in my brain. Soon, I figured it out and paid more attention. It asks you to keep up, greases your grey matter, and makes you work up some of those cerebral juices. I was immeasurably happy to see a film after so long which is intellectually stimulating, visually arresting and sublimely emotional.

The film also contains perhaps one of the best movie openings of recent times. I'm again making a big statement, but I can see the image of a man waiting with a blunderbuss for a few moments before a man appears out of nowhere and is instantly shot becoming an iconic one. Just like the murder scene in the fields in The Godfather (1972) where Clemenza asks to leave the gun and take the cannoli.

Taking advice from a character in his film ("Just be new. Don't copy!"), Rian Johnson gives us a strikingly original film, which had me salivating by the time it ended. Johnson has made two films before: Brick (2005) and The Brothers Bloom (2008) but it is with Looper that he comes into his own and announces himself as a voice to be reckoned with.

The music, although minimal, creates an atmosphere which makes the film almost hypnotic and addictive. I mentioned before that the ideas make this film soar. While the film ties a knot in terms of plot and doesn't leave you with an ambiguous ending resorting to easy analytical nudging. It gives you enough meat to chew like the loose idea of fate. Is falling in love a choice we make or a romantic inexplicable event that is not under our control? Is there a way to contain the seed of anger? Does it manifest and explode or can it be channelized better with love?

La Jet\xe9e (1962), 12 Monkeys (1995) and Looper make for an interesting unofficial trilogy of time-travel movies. Bruce Willis happens to be in two of them and one is supposed to be inspired by La Jet\xe9e. I could see some traces of it in Looper as well. I was also reminded of Disney's The Kid (2000) where Bruce Willis meets a cute chubby kid who happens to be his past. (Minor spoilers ahead) There is a kid in this film too and my god does he steal the show from both Willis and JGL! This section, a frightening/tender mother and son sub-plot, also reminded me of The Terminator movies where something needs to be stopped before it gets worse in the future. This is where it shifts from quasi-sci-fi to quasi-horror. You know those kids with a bad childhood mostly stuck in horror movies like The Shining (1980), The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976) and the recent teenage superhero film, Chronicle? Yeah, all of them get a hope of closure. (End of minor spoilers)

Looper is a superlative experience. It has brain, balls, brawn and the best of all: heart. I'm sure I'll be recommending it to everyone I know and probably going with some of them to watch it again till I'm looped out.

I always approach sci-fi movies specially ones with time travel thrown in with a bit of trepidation. Will it be too complex? Will it fry my brain? Will I have to cling on to every word so that I don't miss the one sentence on which the whole story rests?

And so it was with this apprehension that I went to watch Looper. The story has a time travel element to it but it's only a device to set the story in motion (Sorry!). Loopers are professional assassins hired by the Mob in the year 2074 to kill men who are sent in to them from the future to be killedsince disposing off dead men in 2074 has become very difficult due to tracking devices. The Loopers are paid in silver strapped to the back of the person supposed to be killed. At some point, each Looper kills his own self and thus 'closes the Loop'. The story is about Joe who hesitates to kill his own self when he sees him come up to close the loop and thus in the present day there are two Joes running free. The older Joe has information about a future kingpin called the Rainmaker who will rule the world and he identifies 3 kids who are the potential Rainmakers. He wants to kill these 3 boys so that the Rainmaker never exists and his wife who has been killed by the Rainmaker's men is saved.

The story is not as complicated in seeing as in writing it and the tension slowly build up and gains momentum once the two Joes come face to face. The younger Joe gets involved with one of the young boys and his mother and then the moral dilemma about either saving a young boy now or saving the future comes up. This is when the movie gets really interesting.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the young Joe has an earnest sincerity about him that appeals to you instantly. Bruce Willis looks really old which is just as good since the story needs a really battered old Joe. The presence of the young boy softens the hard edges of the first half of the story and adds the emotional content without which it would have been about good guys v/s bad guys shooting the hell out of each other.

This is quite an interesting movie to watch. Though not mind bending at the level of Matrix or Inception it is quite gripping. If sci-fi is your genre of choice you should not miss this one.

In the bible King Herod went on a babies massacre called the massacre of the innocents because he was told a child is born who will dethrone him. Back home Kansa went through great lengths to avoid the birth of Krishna who was prophesied to kill him. What if they had used time travel' How will it change their story'

One big thing that is kept a secret from those who have seen the trailer is that it is not just about Joseph Gordon Levitt gunning for the life of his own future self played by Bruce Willis. The theme is much larger and thought provoking. What if you could control Osama, Saddam and their likes if you could see what they would turn out to be in the future'

Time travel has been invented in 2074 and is used by criminal organizations by sending the person they want killed to 2044. The hired assassins who do this job are called loopers. Joe Simmons is one of them. One day, he finds his own self (Bruce Willis) from the future in front of him. The old Joe escapes the hit. Now, young Joe is after him to kill him and save himself from his bosses while old Joe is on a different mission altogether.

Looper is an art flick, sci fi and action thriller all rolled into one. Though I was expecting a mind bender it was fairly simple to follow with too many expositions at every stage. If at any point you don't get what is happening the film spoon feeds you so that you are always in the loop of things.

Bruce Willis at times comes across as more John McClane than Joe. Give a gun in his hand and you can't take die hard out of him. Joesph Gordon Levitt with his made up face reminded me more of Keanu Reeves than the younger version of Bruce Willis. It was unnecessary and his character would have worked better without the makeup.

In the end I came out mighty impressed by the child actor Pierce Gagnon more than the two leads

Word of mouth - Looper explores a theme much bigger than what was pitched in the trailer and saves itself from being just another mindless sci fi thriller.

Rating - 3.5 (good)

Ticket meter - worth a theatre visit

P.S - For those who dont know director Rian Johnson has put up a downloadable director's commentary which can be used in the theatre for the 2nd viewing. I am defintely watching it for the 2 nd time with the commentary.