Looper is the sort of movie that does n’t derive along that often . Very few action mechanism movies bother to tell a genuine taradiddle . Very few indie “ auteur ” motion picture have a really compelling plot of land . And you wo n’t see too many gamy - concept science fiction films that turn their bells and whistle into a substantial premise .
You ’re going to want to see Looper right away , before all your friends start tweeting spoilers . And then plan on look on some cartoons afterwards , to get some of the figure of speech out of your head before you seek to sleep . modest spoilers ahead … ( And in case you ’re raw to this , “ minor spoilers ” means I take for granted you ’ve seen the trailers . No big game kink reveal here . )
At least , Looper gave me weird dreams , something few pic have done lately . There are a few sequences in this film that might keep coming back and freak out you out again , although compared to a mickle of horror movies or parentage - drenched activeness movies , this photographic film is n’t that strong a brew . It just uses its violence with extreme sadism and more than a piddling bizarreness . In some ways , Looper prompt me of Drive — all of the fierceness in this film is done with extreme aim , and is taken seriously .

Looper has a neat enough assumption that the movie in all likelihood could have coasted on it . It ’s the fairly dystopian future of 2044 , and Joseph Gordon - Levitt roleplay Joe , a “ inchworm ” who obliterate people who arrive from the future . In 2072 , time locomotion has been invented but is illegal — and gangsters use their time machine to put away of inconvenient people . They send the victim back in time to be hit by Joe , and technically no crime has been commit . Everything ’s dandy — until Joe receive his future self ( Bruce Willis . )
So the whole film is one big paradox , as two versions of the same character run around Kansas City , butting oral sex and making an ever - bigger pile . Usually , the whim of someone play his old / jr. ego would naturally turn into a lineament bailiwick — but this being a noir movie , the group meeting of the two Joes is much more of a encounter , in which both versions of Joe lay out something corrupt or break down to the other .
It ’s heavy to do noir without a certain level of irony these Clarence Shepard Day Jr. — and there was a decent helping of irony in director Rian Johnson ’s first celluloid , the high - schoolhouse noir film Brick . This time around , though , Johnson manages to create a version of noir that feels completely deadpan and devoid of quotation mark — there ’s flock of bodily fluid , but not much caustic remark at all .

In fact , Johnson indirectly shows us in this film how to use writing style . Not as a runway for the characters to roll along until they reach a destination we all see coming * , but as a source of pressure that makes the characters ’ lives difficult . To the extent that this is a “ mobster movie ” or a “ metre - travelling movie , ” those are the elements of the floor that are make both Joes miserable , and threaten them with a bad end .
Noir , of course , is very much of the past , even though we hold out in a time where many of its delineate elements are more pertinent than ever . And , too , many moving-picture show and tv set shows that depict a “ dystopian time to come ” self - consciously make it look like the past — the way the Hunger Games motion-picture show channels 1930s Dustbowl photos in show us District 12 .
Looper follows this style , showing us a dystopian 2044 Kansas City that has a lot of elements of a 1940s mobster movie as well as soupcon of the Great Depression ( but again without noteworthy irony . ) This sort of drives home promptly quite how mess up up affair are in this relatively most - future . And the fact that it ’s a hereafter that looks like the yesteryear in some way of life really work with the account , because 2044 is the past tense to a few major quality in the film . This tenseness between past and future tense is at the core of the moving-picture show , so the fact that it ’s a future that feel diachronic is weirdly appropriate .

And the motion-picture show apply its different environments to make a feeling of cause , and at times of claustrophobia . The metropolis scenes feel paranoia - inducingly tight and dirty , while the field where Joe executes his victims has the perfect desolate , empty face . Later on , when we go out to a more rural stage setting and meet a young mother played by Emily Blunt , the pic suddenly open up .
There are a portion of clichés around time travel , most of them having to do with “ furbish up ” the past times or avoiding a terrible future . To the extent that sentence is a prison house , most fourth dimension - change of location report are about dodging , one way or another . Looper muster a lot of its grim mogul to make time travel , and knowledge of the future , experience like just another physical body of immurement , another whirl of the straightjacket .
Does the time travel make sense ? Well , not entirely . There are a few bits here and there where my B.S.-meter start to twitch considerably . Also , some middling hoary clock time traveling clichés are jog out — but at least the film commits to them and takes them gravely as plot twist . Which is pretty much the only way to go with plot devices that were former before the music director was digest .

Looper is probably go to get a stack of comparisons to Moon — a tense , smart film about a gentleman meeting himself in an oppressive situation — but it actually reminds me a turn more of Drive . It has the same feel of a guy who ’s been tread water system in a sewerage finally losing his footing , and the same tone of being an action mechanism movie where the vehemence and threat get a firebrand new effectiveness from some cunning direction and impregnable playacting . But really , either comparison is pertinent , and represent much - deserved extolment .
Bottom line — in a few days , everybody you know is going to be talking about this moving picture . You ought to see it before that bump , or your future self will go back in time and smack your past ego upside the head .
- This really is how most write up utilize musical genre . As a cut , like for Hot Wheels . It ’s lamentable .

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