Premise: In the future, time travel will be invented, but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When mobsters in 2072 want to get rid of someone, they send the victim back to 2042, where hired guns known as “loopers” are waiting to dispose of them. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one such looper, getting rich from his job and enjoying life…until the day his future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back to be killed. Joe hesitates, and his older self escapes. Now Joe must hunt down his future self and “close the loop.”
My take: First off, this is the most difficulty I’ve had so far with summarizing a movie’s premise for this column. But that’s kind of par for the course when a film’s story involves time travel this heavily. If this short teaser is any indication, it looks like auteur Rian Johnson will be continuing the hot streak begun by his two previous films (Brick [2005] and The Brothers Bloom [2008]) with Looper.
I really like what I’m seeing so far of the cast. Even though I’m only familiar with his more recent work – mostly Inception (2010) and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), the latter of which I have no problem with admitting I liked – I really like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and I think he’ll do some good work here. I like seeing Bruce Willis in pretty much anything, and I’m curious to know what he does here. The brief shot of Emily Blunt with the shotgun looks cool, but I can’t tell anything about her character from the glimpse we get here. Jeff Daniels seems to be playing some kind of mentor or adviser character to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but only time will tell.
I also really like what they’re showing of the action and production design. Considering that his previous two films were a neo-noir drama and a comedic caper film, Johnson looks to be handling himself quite well with his first action movie. In the teaser, we get quick glimpses of a couple gunfights, what looks like a fistfight or two, and at least one car chase. The way that the world of 2042 is handled looks both interesting and subtle – other than the loopers’ guns, some of the cars, and a few pieces of technology, you might think the film was set in the present day.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “Looper.” Photo by Sony Pictures Entertainment – © 2011, Looper, LLC.
Honestly, I don’t feel the need to complain about much of anything here. Pretty much everything that does bug me would be questions that the concept brings up. Why would the mobsters in 2072 think that Joe would have no problem being asked to kill his older self? And if they have time-travel technology, why wouldn’t the mobsters just send potential victims back to dinosaur times if they want to get rid of someone (that blasted butterfly effect I suppose)? But all that said, I’m sure that the movie itself will address these questions, so it’s not fair to be screaming about plot holes just based on the first teaser trailer.
My quibbles about the mechanics of time travel aside, this is a very good teaser for a movie that looks quite promising. If Looper lives up to the trailer, it might be a highlight of the fall movie season.
ANTICIPATION: Thinking about it may make my head hurt, but I still want to see it.
Release Date: September 28th, 2012
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo, and Garret Dillahunt
Director: Rian Johnson
Writer: Rian Johnson
Timothy Monforton