Looper

Directed by: Rian Johnson

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt & Jeff Daniels

Rating: ★★½

Advertised as a sci-fi action thriller, for the first third of the movie Looperdelivers just this, and to a very high standard. But then something very strange happens: the pre-established futuristic world and time travelling retribution plot suddenly take an abrupt backseat to be replaced by a slow burning drama that turns into a psychological horror, and then these three elements are all (awkwardly) sutured together for a telekinetic action packed finale.

Joe lives life to the full...

Confused? So was I. Looper seems like two entirely separate films that have been forced together. Even though it was written and directed by the same person, it is almost like one person wrote and directed Act 1, another wrote and directed Act 2, and then they collaborated on their two completely different ideas for Act 3. Which was… weird.

But this isn’t necessarily the strangest thing about Looper. The fact that the ‘real’ plot is centred on a supposedly evil telekinetic demon child a la The Omen, is. And because of this, the film transitions from a dark futuristic thriller to a rather dull drama into a harrowing horror movie within the space of about half an hour, which is very unusual, and just plain odd.

Act 1, the best part of the entire movie, is all about Joe (Gordon-Levitt), who lives in a disparate future where, 30 years down the line, time travel has been invented but outlawed, and so only criminals use it, which they do so for nefarious reasons. Joe is a ‘Looper’, meaning that he is a hit man who kills whoever is sent back from the future so that their bodies can be easily disposed of. The villainous criminal overlord tyrant of the future, called ‘Rainmaker’, decides to close all the ‘loops’ and so begins sending all of the aged Loopers back to be executed by themselves. Joe is suddenly faced with an older version of himself (Willis) who is desperate to change the future by killing the crime lord who destroyed his life and sentenced him to death. Old Joe manages to escape, and a chase ensues between the older and younger Joe.

Both versions of Joe will stop at nothing to get what they want...

Act 1 is well executed, interesting, and thrilling. Then we get to Act 2, which becomes more like Little House on the Prairie meets Village of the Damned than anything else. This chunk of the film focuses on Sara (Blunt) as Joe’s plot takes a backseat so that this single mother can talk in long and excruciating detail about her hard life. Way too much time is given to establishing her and her son, and the film really begins to unravel here.

But then it gets worse.

Without giving too much away (even though I already have), out of nowhere the film becomes a disturbing horror movie. There are some good bits of tension and shlock, and overall this part is chillingly effective, but it is completely incongruous to the rest of the movie. I don’t mind things being shaken up, but after the rather tedious expositional set-up, this unsettling twist is completely random, even though it is very chunkily foreshadowed at the very beginning. Then Looperironically loops back into a straight-up sci-fi action thriller, and rather abruptly, ends.

I left the cinema not knowing what to think. I really enjoyed Act 1, disliked Act 2, and kind of liked Act 3, so I was unsure how to feel about the movie. Looper had such a strong and unique premise; it had potential to reach the dizzying heights of Minority Report. But it didn’t. It really, really didn’t. 

Old Joe's plot isn't effectively established, so the second part of the movie doesn't seem to fit with the first.

To put this puzzling script into perspective, I’m going to use another film as an example. Imagine that The Terminator begins with Sarah Connor. We follow her rather dull, awkwardly ordinary life for about half an hour. Then she goes out dancing with her friends and suddenly a huge man in a leather jacket comes into the nightclub and starts blasting the place apart. She is rescued by a man claiming he is from the future, and says that an evil robot has come back in time to kill her so that her son, a future resistance leader fighting against evil sentient machines who have taken over the world, is not born. The audience would not only be incredibly confused they would also not really care too much about the characters because a) the horrifying alternative future world has not been properly established, b) this alternative future has not visually impacted us enough to will the main characters to succeed and c) because of this we don’t really get the significance of her son, and why it is so vitally important that he is born. We wouldn’t really care about Sarah Connor’s plight: it wouldn’t be as meaningful, because there isn’t much at stake as we haven’t seen the harsh future world. Now this is exactly what Looperdoes (and The Terminator doesn’t!). It never really focuses on the (even worse) reality-to-be or the villain that Old Joe is trying to stop, and because of this, when we discover that this is in fact the real plot, it seems unusually inconsistent with the rest of the movie.

The acting is good. Gordon-Levitt clearly spent a lot of time learning how to imitate Willis, and added with the prosthetic makeup, he looks a lot like him, which is strange but effective. Bruce Willis is also good, and both of them make the truly repulsive character of Joe likeable. Blunt also gets some moments to shine by displaying her emotional turmoil in the melodramatic second act, and the supporting cast also give solid performances.

Sara (Blunt) gets caught up in the action- and completely ruins the movie's fast pacing.

Looperhas, for some reason, been critically hailed, which, to me, is proof of the age old theory that film critics only watch the first fifteen minutes of a movie and make a judgement based on that. Sure, if I only watched the first part of the film, I would have given it a very good review. But in context, this muddled, disjointed and confused movie really doesn’t work. The script needed to be condescended, more thrilling and tighter so that it actually weaved the disparate plots and ideas together effectively.

I’m a huge fan of action and horror movies (and I also enjoy sci-fi too!) and if I can’t decide whether or not I liked Looper, then that doesn’t bode well. The best litmus test to truly knowing if you like a movie or not is deciding if you would watch it again. And I wouldn’t watch Looperagain, not even to help me make up my mind about why it failed on so many levels. So based on that, I guess I didn’t like it. It’s an okay film, and other people might enjoy it, but there are just too many problems with it that I can’t overlook.

Joe initially runs for his life, and then stops when he gets stuck in the real plot.

Looperis not what you expect. Instead of an action thriller, you are given a distressing and upsetting chiller that never quite hits the mark and is never fully realised. It just isn’t what you want it to be. Fans of horror movies centred on creepy children would appreciate it, I’m sure, but most people paying to see this film are probably expecting something a lot less unsettling and a lot more enjoyable. The dark and twisted plot works well at freaking you out and providing tension, but this isn’t what I anticipated viewing. I don’t mind films that try something new, but only when they are done properly and are well made so that they actually deliver something successfully.

A film in three incongruent acts, Looper has a lot going for it, until it completely changes track and tone. But then, what do you expect from the man who wrote and directed the atrocity Brick. I feel that it is high time that Hollywood producers actually read the scripts of the films they are producing, so that they spend their money on movies worth watching.