I AM HIM, HE IS ME: a review of "Looper"

"LOOPER"

Written and Directed by Rian Johnson

***1/2 (three and a half stars)

Oh, what a near miss this was! The cinematic brass ring was just this close in reach and somehow, it all slipped away. 

Dear readers, with that opening statement being said, I do want you to understand that if you take the plunge into Writer/Director Rian Johnson's science fiction/action/existential thriller "Looper," you are indeed in for a most involving and unique experience as this film will simultaneously make your pulse pound and scratch your head in pure puzzlement. While I shall do my very best to review this film to you without producing any spoilers, I will say that the "near miss" in question stems from the fact that Johnson had me in the palm of his cinematic hand from the very first moments of "Looper." My enjoyment of the film continued to rise and rise and then, I was abruptly brought back down to Earth by one (and possibly two) conceptual potholes that made me feel that the house of cards Johnson had been meticulously stacking was quite possibly not as sturdy as he may have wished for it to be.

Set in a violent and grim Kansas City in the year 2044, "Looper" introduces us to Joe (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt), a drug addicted hit man employed by a crime syndicate to assassinate and dispose criminals from 2074, who are sent back to 2044 through an illegal time travel process called "looping." When the syndicate is ready to end their formal arrangements with members of their hit squad, the assassin's future self from 2074 is then sent back to 2044 for assassination and disposal, thus "closing the loop." When Joe faces the quandary of facing and hunting down his future self, Old Joe (Bruce Willis), the paradoxes of time and punishment pile upwards forcing Joe to make a crucial decision concerning his ultimate destiny.

That is as much as I feel that I am able to share with you about "Looper" as part of the film's charm is not knowing exactly where this film is headed or what conceptual tricks it may pull from its seemingly endless sleeve. But, I do feel very safe is saying that as you watch, you are certain to discover elements from Michael Anderon's "Logan's Run" (1976),  James Cameron's "The Terminator" (1984), Robert Zemeckis' "Back To The Future" trilogy (1985, 1989, 1990), Terry Giliam's "Twelve Monkeys" (1995), The Wachowski's "The Matrix" trilogy (1999, 2003) to even television's "Lost," "Fringe," and even dashes of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and miraculously "Looper" never feels as if it has been made out of the spare parts of past works. Rian Johnson, through the strength of his cinematic vision (and aided greatly by Cinematographer Steve Yedlin and Composer Nathan Johnson), is able to beautifully weave all of those familiar elements into a deeply compelling story that is completely of his own devising and quite an elevation from his debut film "Brick" (2005), a high school set film noir that never transcended itself from being anything more than an exercise in style. 

The crucial element that I felt was lacking in "Brick" but was in sumptuous supply in "Looper" was Johnson's smart, sophisticated ability to inject a heavy philosophical underpinning to the proceedings that gave this film an enormous amount of humanity and even spiritual crisis. With the storyline's main conceit of a hit man forced into killing his future self, we are given the philosophical and psychological struggle of a man facing down the consequences of his violent present. Once you realize that you have killed yourself in the present, how do you possibly live the next 30 years of your life essentially knowing the very day on which you will die and the method which that death will be executed? Beyond that, what is to stop yourself from running away from your life, knowing that one day you will be forced into killing yourself in the first place? Joseph Gordon-Leavitt performs a remarkable task of portraying one who, despite being a junkie and hard-boiled, does indeed illicit a sense of sympathetic fear at the perceived inevitability of his life's course. But also, when he is confronted with his future self, he almost always tries to psychologically extract himself from the situation by referring to Old Joe as if he is a completely different person.

Through Joe's actions in 2044 and the life he grows into over the following 30 years as Old Joe, "Looper" becomes a powerful and soulful examination that I believe that any of us could relate to: the idea of being confronted with the mistakes and bad decisions that we have all made, and despite our best efforts continue to make, and how those decisions define us. Can we ever outrun our demons or are we just destined to be the people we are no matter what we may or may not do to change our life's outcomes? With those themes, Rian Johnson has proven himself to be a filmmaker who has indeed created a science fiction rarity these days as "Looper" is the science fiction film that is built upon ideas rather than cataclysm even though the film does provide a lot of bang for its buck will extremely well constructed action sequences that surprise and even fill you with dread.    

Much of the film's darkest clouds arrive in the form of Old Joe and to that I have to give Bruce Willis much credit for delivering a performance that functions as a near existential howl into an unforgiving universe. I just cannot go into the specifics but I have to express that I was so very pleased with his performance, a pure reminder than when he wants to be, Bruce Willis can be a dramatic actor of great range and depth as well as not squelching a bit of his trademark sly humor. Take the sequence where present and Old Joe meet in a diner. While it houses a certain intensity, it also showcases Willis' skill as he is essentially playing the role of a frustrated parent trying to get through to his hard-headed child, but in this case, the hard-headed child is himself. Is it a scene where we can laugh in recognition as we can all ask ourselves that if we did indeed have the chance to speak and give advice to our younger selves, would we listen? As the film moves ahead, Willis, through nothing more than facial expressions and body language, shows the lengths to which he will go to save his own future and the crippling spiritual conflict he becomes engulfed in with each bloody step and choice he makes. It is a terrific performance, which makes his consistently last film role choices and performances all the more head pounding as we all know how great he can actually be. 

But then...

Well, I really cannot say. But, let's just say that after a spell "Looper" reminded me very much of Barry Levinson's "Sphere" (1998), a very strong and hugely entertaining science fiction, undersea thriller that faltered at the conclusion as it seemed to write itself into a corner that it could not escape, so in order to end the film, all of the established rules did not apply anymore. "Looper" felt like that to me by the end. While not derailing the experience as a whole, I did feel that Rian Johnson had several eggs in his basket and instead of using the best, he just cooked them all, making a less satisfying meal in the process. "Looper" became an experience that I think was more confusing than it had to be. 

Even as I think about it now, I am still stuck by two sequences where the conceptual designs doesn't feel as if they can work based upon the rules Johnson establishes in the film's opening sequences. There are moments when it seems as if Joe and Old Joe are existing within two time lines yet somehow the two threads intersect into one story. The film's climax involves the present states and potential futures of several characters yet the meaning of the final decisions within that scene remain unclear to me because I was not entirely convinced of one character's possible future identity, therefore altering the significance of the climax, and the film, greatly. It just seemed as if Rian Johnson marvelously created his landscape, set up the rules of the game and then wrote himself into a corner from which he could not escape. So, instead of going back and re-thinking some things, he threw the old rules out and tossed in some new ones. Maybe, to be fair, I am just too confused to figure it all out or maybe there were some conceptual hiccups but regardless, these were the moments that stopped me from awarding this film four stars, especially as I was headed in that direction for much of the film's duration.

Even so, "Looper" is a head spinning, enormously entertaining and emotionally resonant thrill ride fueled by sheer creativity and the desire to bring you an experience you have not had in quite the same way before. To that, Rian Johnson succeeded terrifically...

...But if you don't mind, I think I still have to piece bits and pieces together some more.