Almost Super "Looper"

Rian Johnson's movies aggravate me to no end. They have such interesting concepts and ideas, employ lots of actors that I enjoy, the filmmaking itself is polished and eye-catching, and I even like Johnson's sense of humor. However, they always seem to fall just short of accomplishing what they set out to do, and "Looper" probably comes closest to being a really good, solid, memorable film, but still falls a few steps short. And it's frustrating because "Looper" does so much right, and I really, really wanted it to work.

"Looper" is a time travel film, and like all time travel films deals in paradoxes and alternate timelines and other complicated concepts that tend to leave plot holes everywhere and inspire continuity Nazis to write reams of text either pointing out all the flaws, or explaining them away, or both. Rian Johnson is not particularly interested in the mechanics of how his story should work as he is in simply telling it, and admits as much. In the year 2044, time travel has not been invented yet, but it will be several decades further into the future, where it is outlawed. Only a few criminal organizations use the technology in order to dispose of people who are in their way, sending them back in time where assassins called Loopers kill and dispose of them in 2044, where they cannot be traced. Occasionally the aged Loopers in the future are also sent back to be executed by their own younger selves, a practice known as "closing the loop." The Loopers are handsomely paid and know the risks in advance, most of them perfectly willing to take a life of wealth in exchange for a violent end. Also, the consequences of not following through on this contract are extremely unpleasant.

However, there are the cases where things go wrong and the older version of a Looper gets away from the younger version. This happens to Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose older counterpart from the future, played by Bruce Willis, returns to the past with an unknown agenda that somehow involves a young mother, Sara (Emily Blunt), and her six-year-old son Cid (Pierce Gagnon). And as innocuous as that bit of summary sounds, I'm worried that I may be saying too much already. The fun of "Looper" is its twists and turns, and the way the filmmakers play with causality in clever ways. Unfortunately, Rian Johnson, who scripted and directed the film, has some gaps in his storytelling that I felt really undermined what he was trying to do. I liked the way the film resolved, and I liked all the characters and how the narrative was going up until a point. However, there were a few dots that didn't get connected, a few lines of exposition left missing, a few more glimpses of the future that were necessary to hammer home what the stakes were at a crucial juncture. It honestly felt like Johnson had run out of money before filming a few small, but vital scenes that would have helped give the film the emotional impact he wanted.

The parts that Johnson gets right, though, he gets very right. The cast especially deserve kudos. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is made up with latex prostheses to resemble a younger Bruce Willis, and though he occasionally looks a little rubbery, the effect works. Both Gordon-Levitt and Willis deliver fine performances, heavy on the action, especially the handful of scenes that they get to play together. The supporting cast is great, and includes Jeff Daniels as the villainous employer of the Loopers in 2044, Paul Dano as one of Joe's colleagues, and Noah Segan and Garret Dillahunt as mob enforcers. I suspect that many viewers who are unsatisfied with "Looper" may point to the later segments with Sara and Cid as the problem, but I can find no fault with Emily Blunt's performance, and Pierce Gagnon turns out to be surprisingly good.

I also liked the worldbuilding. The business of time travel is portrayed as wonderfully seedy, controlled by seedy men in seedy professions. “Looper” takes place mostly in an unnamed American city in its decline, but we see enough of the rest of the world to establish that this is not a dystopia. Most of the telltale signs of the future setting are small - popular drugs are taken with eyedroppers, and beat-up old cars sport solar panels. The stylistic affectations of the mob, however, are pure film noir, which is very appropriate. “Looper,” like so many science-fiction films before it, is best when it echoes noir, and less so when it edges closer to horror and melodrama.

I just wish that story was a little stronger and had the finesse to match its ambitions. I am very glad that "Looper" exists, and I'm glad I saw it, but Rian Johnson has still got a ways to go as a filmmaker. He is getting close to being a heluvah good director though. He is getting very close.
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