Looper

Science fiction is a funny genre for me. There are some fantastic films representing the best of the genre and then there are some which just leave me utterly baffled and confused…

The year is 2074 and time-travel has been been discovered and made illegal. However, criminal organisations use time-travel to dispose of people they no long want to exist. The people who carry out these assassinations are called ‘loopers’. When the criminal gangs want to ‘close the loop’, they send the looper’s older self to the past to be killed by their younger self. Failing to do this is a death sentence.

The story centres on a looper called Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who amongst other things is troubled by what he does and is making plans for a future in France. He is ready to do an assassination, when he is faced with his older self (Bruce Willis), during a struggle Old Joe escapes and Joe needs to find him and destroy him before the criminal gang kill him.

Old Joe is also trying to find and kill ‘The Rainmaker’ - who is a child that he believes is responsible for the death of his wife who was murdered during Old Joe’s capture.

So from my brief synopsis you can see that it’s a slightly confusing film. The plot is interesting, but for me there are too many strands to the story and once you get past that, it very obvious how this is going to end. In this respect, it is nothing special at all which is a shame as I am a fan of all the main actors in the film.

I particularly like Gordon-Levitt and was blown away by his performance in 50/50 this year, but his performance is overshadowed by what they have done to his face in Looper. They have done some subtle prosthetics to make him look like Willis, but it is very, very distracting because you really aren’t sure if they have done something to his face or if it’s just you not quite remembering what he looked like. Either way, it was an issue and wasn’t especially necessary.

Beyond the prosthetics issue, the main reason that the film didn’t work for me was that there was no engagement, I didn’t care about the characters and thought that the pace was too slow.

I can appreciate that it was brilliantly shot and it looked really good, but I really didn’t ‘get’ this film at all.

Verdict: Excellent performances from all the main actors, but the film didn’t engage me at all and Gordon-Levitt’s prosthetics were an unwelcome distraction. I’m not entirely sure that I’m alone in not totally getting this film judging by the comments I overheard on leaving the screening.