FILM REVIEW
Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good;
7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2:
Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non-Functional.
LOOPER
Dir: Rian Johnson
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels
Running Time: 118 mins
If you're going into Looper wondering how it's going to
solve the paradoxes inherited by any story involving time travel,
check your expectations at the door. Writer/director Rian Johnson
sets out his position when Bruce Willis tells his younger self not to
worry about the specifics of it all, else it'll end in diagrams and
fuzziness. The point is, it's there, it works, and not to worry your
pretty little head with such minutiae as the 'why'.
I doubt anyone except the most pernickety sci-fi nerds will give a
damn though, particularly as Looper isn't a story about time
travel so much as a thriller which happens to use time travel as a
narrative device. Though explanations aren't forthcoming, it's a
device used with great wit and flair, with timelines intersecting and
breaking apart with every fresh twist.
Looper's big questions revolve around determinism vs free
will, and whether it would be possible to change the future if we
were aware of the sequence of events set to make it happen. You'd be
hard pressed to call it a philosophical film, but its drama is
underpinned by neat spins on familiar genre questions. Such themes
are generally left in the background, a secondary pleasure to
unravelling the tightly woven plot. There's no time for pondering
when Bruce Willis is busy blasting his way through a gangster's
hideout with a pair of P90s, and the movie's emotional core is more
concerned with developing the relationship between young Joe (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt), single mother Sarah (Emily Blunt) and her gifted son
than making a point.
That's not to say there aren't depths to be explored once the
credits have rolled: the fate of Bruce Willis' older Joe feels more
tragic and inevitable in retrospect. He travels back to the past to
save someone he cares about in the future, yet by messing with the
past, he's simultaneously setting his younger self on a different
life trajectory which does not appear to involve that person at all.
(Yes, the paradox is ignored, and yes, the movie is stronger for such
streamlining). Having younger Joe's new memories inform the actions
of older Joe is a nifty trick, allowing vital information to be
conveyed even when the two versions of the character are miles apart.
Johnson has a lot of fun with such possibilities, particularly in one
grimly funny demonstration of the punishment meted out to those who
fail to 'close their loops'.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt continues to grow into an actor of
considerable grace and nuance, subtly mimicking Willis' poise and
demeanour (aided by a flawless prosthetic) but replacing his older
self's acquired wisdom with the blind cockiness of a young man
willfully ignoring the consequences of his choices. Having
Gordon-Levitt's character be the more cynical is a nice tweak on the
how relationships between young and old are often portrayed as the
latter being rejuvenated by the former. Willis' Joe certainly doesn't
want his youth back and considers younger Joe an impulsive idiot. The
wistful ageing action star is a role the actor has comfortably
slipped into in recent years, and while there's nothing drastically
new for him to do here, he finds the character's heart in the small
moments when forced to literally confront his past.
As usual, Emily Blunt threatens to blow them both out of the water
when she turns up about halfway through, giving a perfectly
calibrated performance as a young woman broken by bad decisions but
doing her best to make up for them. Not only is her American accent
flawless, but she's given the movie's biggest and most important arc,
and hits every note with heartbreaking precision. The only
distraction is her complexion, far too perfect for someone who has
spent years labouring alone on an agricultural farm. Her eye-popping
aptitude for filling out a pair of tight jeans, on the other hand,
makes far more sense.
On the downside, the villains are a dull bunch, with Jeff Daniels
hinting at layers beneath mob organiser Abe's calmly sociopathic
surface but never given the chance to explore them. Thanks to the
story's focus being fixed on Sarah and the two Joes, he and his men
only serve as embodiments of the external danger which forced older
Joe's journey back in time to begin with, whereafter they become
largely irrelevant. Despite boasting of their accuracy with
customised magnums, they also suffer a bad case of henchman syndrome,
completely unable to hit a target over even the shortest distance.
Plot threads concerned younger Joe's drug addiction and relationship
with Piper Perabo's stripper (the subject of the plot's most
preposterous coincidence) also fizzle out, while the existence of
telekinesis doesn't sit comfortably in an otherwise grounded vision
of the future, especially since its role in the plot turns out to be
incidental at best.
Fortunately, the central yarn is so elegantly spun that the worst
criticism to be levelled against such concerns is that they slightly
overcomplicate matters. Johnson holds back the directorial theatrics,
trusting the story's complexities - particularly flash-forwards
through defunct or theoretical timelines - to be compelling without
assistance, and it's a canny move. Though not perfect, the movie
earns more than enough credit to cover its rough patches thanks to
the boldness of its ideas, the terrific cast, and the most terrifying
child this side of The Omen. After the messy and overly
'quirky' Brothers Bloom, it's a return to the
genre-filmmaking-with-a-twist which gave Rian Johnson his breakout in
Brick. With Looper seemingly destined big
commercial success, the director looks to have set himself back on
track for a bright future.
[ 8 ]
[ 8 ]
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