Looper: Film Review

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Bruce Willis in another movie? Yup, believe it or not, this is his sixth release of 2012. Luckily, this is one of the better ones, thanks to the performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt who bring a freshness and (let’s just say it) youth that is usually missing from the standard Bruce Willis action flick. For an overt example of this, please watch The Expendables. (Actually, don’t: just take my word for it, it’s really bad).

This one is about an assassin named Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who works for “The Boss” (Jeff Daniels) who employs professional killers known as Loopers. Loopers are, in short, time traveling assassins who kill with a weapon known as the blunderbuss. The Looper travels through time with the victim, shoots the target, and then steps back into the future. No body to be found because it’s 30 years in the past. Brilliant, right? Sure, except when the targeted victim is the Looper himself. Ah ha!

That’s what happens when Joe encounters his future, older self (played by Bruce Willis) who has been sent into the past by a mob boss known only as “The Rainmaker” so that he can be executed by his younger self. It sounds confusing, and it kind of is, but it all quickly turns into a cat-and-mouse game when the two Joes team up and start running from the Mob. Needless to say, they don’t exactly like each other or think alike, even though they are the same person. And hat’s off to Gordon-Leviit for getting all of Willis’s trademark facial ticks and expressions down to a science.

Emily Blunt shows up halfway through as a Kansas mom who had a relationship with Joe. Did they have kids? I’m not entirely sure, because the movie offers a lot of parallel storylines that may or may not be true. In the end, it only adds to the confusion. But then, that’s part of the excitement. Looper isn’t the smartest action thriller you’ve seen, but it is definitely the most fun you’ll have at one this season. It also happens to be the best Bruce Willis movie to emerge since Moonrise Kingdom in which he also had a supporting part. I think his days as a leading man are officially over.