Looper (2012)

Looper is a science fiction action film and hence it has a science fiction gimmick. In this case the gimmick, "Loopers", is kind of complicated and requires some unpacking. The present of the film is 2044 and at that time time travel has yet to be developed, but 30 hence it will be developed, and very quickly outlawed. Time travel persists however as a very niche method of body disposal. You see by the 2070's some unspecified technology will make it all but impossible to dispose of a body unnoticed in what is then the present, so organized crime hit upon a scheme of sending people they want whacked back thirty years, shackled and blindfolded, and then assassinated, the bodies disposed of in a more hospitable time. "Loopers" are the assassins, centred in what I take to be Kansas City they are supervised by Jeff Daniels, who was sent back into the past to oversea this work. When the victims are sent into the past to be killed they have the loopers payment, solid gold or silver bars, strapped to their torso. Eventually each looper will be sent their future self, provided the live long enough, to assassinate, closing their loop. They get a big payoff for this last job and then can go off and live out their remaining decades on the down low, waiting to be kidnapped and sent back in time to be murdered by themselves. It's convoluted, but in the movie it works.

Our protagonist looper Joe is both Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Bruce Willis (did they do something to JGL's nose, because he really works as a young Willis). When the future Joe gets sent back he escapes his past self and sets out track down and murder a then five year old future crime boss who will be responsible for the death of futures Joe's wife whom past Joe hasn't meet yet. Past Joe tries to stop future Joe, and end up in hiding at the farm of Emily Blunt and her five year old who may or may not grow up to be the future crime boss. Also there is telekinesis. Anyway an intriguing film, it doesn't go to far out in the aesthetics it ascribes the future, in fact a big motif seems to be older technology retrofitted for future use, i.e. gas powered cars and trucks fitted with solar panels. Also the economy in the future doesn't appear to be that good and there is a lot of crime, wealth inequality, prostitution appears to be legal, ect. Like all good fictional futures its a commentary on the present. Anyway I quite liked this movie, it doesn't ask too much of you, but it keeps you entertained and provides just enough food for thought to make it intellectually respectable, for a main stream action sci-fi film. ***