Looper is the new sci-fi crime thriller with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) and yesteryear's action star, Bruce Willis (Die Hard, Armageddon). The central ingredient to the film's plot is time travel, so you all know what that means - anybody who complained about not understanding The Terminator, Back to the Future, or any of the recent series of Doctor Who, please leave now!
One of the fantastic things about time travel in Looper, however, is that the film uses the idea that if time travel will ever exist, we would already know - someone would have come back in time to tell us. The film opens with a voice-over from Levitt's Joe, telling us that "time travel hasn't been invented yet, but 30 years from now it will be." His job as a looper is to kill the mob's victims, sent back from the future using outlawed time travel. The mob in the future don't have to worry about the (nearly impossible) task of disposing of the body and the loopers in the film's 'present day' (the year 2044) can't be tried for murder because the people they kill are technically still alive. The job, however, comes with a catch. When it's decided a looper's contract is to be closed, they have to "close the loop" - kill their own future self. This concept is explored in beautifully dark tones in the film. Closing their loop gets a looper a golden pay-day, which is enough to help them set up a new life, and this is treated as a reason for celebration in the city's nightclubs. We see a montage of party after party celebrating loops being closed with rounds of drinks, and you can't help but feel a little sick at the sight of people so uncaring for themselves, so money-hungry, that they see the day of their own death - their own suicide, in a weird, time-travelling way - as a cause for unrefined celebration, filling themselves with drugs and alcohol.
Drug abuse is one of the topics touched on lightly in the film, with the use of a futuristic substance administered through eye-drops. There's a cleverness to this - drugs distort the user's perception of reality, so it seems fitting to have them taken directly into the eyes, literally changing characters' vision of the world. There's a sequence - unsettling, though fantastic - where we see the world as Levitt's character experiences it when under the influence. The effect is created through mixing standard shots with those captured on a wide-angle lens, combining POV shots with close-ups of a wide-eyed Levitt and muffling and distorting ambient sounds. The final result is to create a sense of disconnection from the reality of the film, trapping us inside the same drug-induced prison that the character of Joe is in.
Things start to go awry when Joe's friend and fellow-looper Seth has to close his loop. Victims have their heads bagged and are usually killed instantly, so there's no chance of knowing when your loop has been closed until you collect your payment and find it in plates of gold rather than silver. Seth's victim, however, appears singing a song that he recognises from childhood. Knowing the man he is meant to kill is himself, Seth allows his future self to escape (called "letting your loop run"). The film's most horrific moment comes when we find out what happens to Loopers who refuse to close their loop - and it's far more horrific for their future selves...
A few days later, Joe's latest target arrives. But, unlike most victims, he's unbound and his head is un-bagged. He escapes, leaving behind a few golden plates - Joe's future self (played by Willis) was the target and his escape puts Joe on the run from the mob. After we see his daring escape from the men sent to kill him, we see Joe's last assignment again. And this is where things get strange...
This time, the victim is bound in the usual manner. Joe kills him, collects the golden payment that's attached to the body and, realising he has killed his future self, goes about living his life. We see a montage, going through the years of his life as he grows into his future self (involving a painful shot of Bruce Willis in the most terrible black wig you will ever see) and eventually we come to the day when he is sent back to be killed by his past self. Keeping up? He overpowers his captors and, hoping to change the past to save his wife - killed by the men who captured him - goes back in time of his own accord. This leads to the first sequence we saw, where he arrives unbound and escapes his past self's attempt to kill him.
Levitt's Joe and Willis's Joe don't exactly hit it off when they meet - Joe from 2044 is angry at Joe from 2074 for forcing him to go on the run. He doesn't view his future self as the same person as himself and doesn't care about meeting the woman who he is told will become his wife. He's quite happy to give up the life he is told he will love and create a new future. Joe 2074, however, is determined to stop his wife being killed, which means stopping his own bosses coming after him. To do that, he's hoping to kill the child who will become 'the Rainmaker' - the mob boss of the future who is closing all the loops.
The film might seem like a bit of complicated sci-fi action on the surface then, but it does go deeper than that. A range of ethical and moral issues are explored here - are we really the same people our whole lives if we progress and change with time? If you knew a child would grow into someone terrible, could you bring yourself to kill that child? How far is anyone willing to go to protect a loved one?
The film is deliciously complex, which I personally adore - it requires the audience to think and work things out rather than just sit back and watch. It's a hard-hitter as well, dealing with some very graphic and some very difficult themes, creating a wonderfully dark and gritty atmosphere with an overall tone that feels like a fantastic blend of blockbuster and indie movie. The ending is a little predictable, though powerful nonetheless, and there are times when you think it would have been fun to explore the possibilities of time travel a bit more, but overall the film is stunning and a satisfying look into the darkest parts of a Dystopian future - 9/10.
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