Rian Johnson’s worlds are rich and detailed, self-contained terrariums in which his colorful characters fulfill their cog-like machinations, and every action has a purpose akin to clockwork. His films are clever, funny and intriguing, a pretty puzzle for both the eyes and the mind. So far, he’s tackled high school neo-noir in Brick (2005), confidence men in The Brothers Bloom (2008), and now with Looper, Johnson takes on time travel.
Looper is set in 2044, where Joe (a facially altered Gordon-Levitt) works as an assassin for a mob of the future who sends their victims back to Joe’s time to be shot and disposed of, effectively erasing them from the future. Joe gets paid well for his work, affording him an upper-echelon life of night clubs and eye-drop drugs until he notices all his looper associates start having to close their loops. This means your last target and your last pay-off, in which the man sent from the future for you to kill is you, and you’re given a 30-year retirement until that time when you become you own victim. Loop closed.
Of course, Joe fails to close his loop. His old self (Bruce Willis) is on an assassination mission of his own to stop the creation of a future kingpin called the Rainmaker who is closing all the loops to the past. Joe wants to kill old Joe, and the mob wants to kill them both. Joe seeks refuge on a farm with a single mom (Blunt) whose son may or may not grow up to be the Rainmaker. It’s 12 Monkeys meets T2, and if it’s confusing to read, it’s just as confusing to write, yet somehow, not to watch.
The dark, future-noir look is both gritty and slick, and many scenes stand-out as candidates for best in the genre. One in particular pits present and future Joe in conversation at a diner, almost daring the audience to shout “paradox!” But even with all the “rules” of time travel, Johnson’s Rubik’s cube story gets neatly solved, proving the pattern projected by his previous works that his skill as a craftsman is no fluke. If anything can be said against his oeuvre, it’s that the technique often overshadows the heart (he got closest with The Brothers Bloom), and this remains true in Looper, but you’ll hardly notice in a world this engrossing.
