Looper

Looper: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Stays on Top

Joe prepares to eliminate his next target (Courtesy of screenrant)

Over the past few years, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has emerged to A-list status as an actor, with 500 Days of Summer, 50/50, Inception and The Dark Knight Rises among his credits. More recently, he has added another great film to that list – Looper. The movie features Gordon-Levitt as an assassin named Joe (how appropriate) in the year 2044, working for a mob that sends threats 30 years to the past to be disposed of. Joe’s job consists of him waiting in a cornfield when requested and holding a shotgun to an empty tarp. In a matter of moments, a person arrives out of thin air on the tarp, hooded and bound. In less than a second, that person is dead.

The assassins for the mob are called loopers. Time travel is deemed highly illegal once discovered, and so the mob eradicates any evidence of participating in it. After 30 years, each looper will be sent back to be assassinated by their former self, referred in the film as “closing your loop.”

During one particular assassination, Joe hesitates when he sees the man who appears is not hooded or bound. Looking into his eyes, he realizes the man is his future self. After a brief scuffle, which the older Joe (Bruce Willis, one of my favorite actors) wins, both Joes are now on the run from the mob.

It is soon revealed that Joe traveled back willingly attempt to stop The Rainmaker, the head of the mob, from rising to power. By doing so, he saves his future and ultimately, himself. He comes back with a series of numbers that lead him to three possible candidates of who The Rainmaker might be, and makes it his mission to get rid of all of them.

Elsewhere, younger Joe stumbles onto the farm of a young woman named Sara, after being injured. The revelation that it is her toddler son Cid who may grow up to be The Rainmaker creates a conflict leading to a conclusion that kept my eyes glued to the screen and left me mind-blown.

This film is extremely entertaining, and is sure to be one of the big names in sci-fi for 2012, along with The Hunger Games and Prometheus. It is completely original, featuring an incredible script and notable performances and character development. This also seemed to be as much of an effort behind the camera as it was in front, as the sound effects, visual effects and film editing were flawless, making the action scenes pieced together astoundingly. It also manages to take a seemingly complicated plot and make it graspable for the first-time viewer, as opposed to movies like Inception, which required a second view for many in order to digest everything that happened.

A time traveler from the future has come to the past to assassinate three people – one of which could alter the future drastically. This premise probably sounds familiar to those who have seen the Terminator series. While this part of Looper is eerily similar to the classic franchise, it uses only the framework of the idea, and brings it to life in a completely new, different, and original fashion. In short, Looper is incredible, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt proves once again to moviegoers everywhere that he is nothing short of a Hollywood star.

Rating: 4.5/5