- Would you kill yourself for a living?The film opens with a great hook. That bang in the very first scene echoes for a long time and, hopefully, will carry most of the audience through the movie's problematic exposition. If you go with it, I can promise you'll have a really good time! The downside of stories like this is that in order to pull the viewer into the world you have to explain the rules and convince him to buy into it. In Looper you have to accept these arbitrary premises: The easy part to digest is the fact that in a near future time traveling exists. Along with that comes a really baggy backstory told by the protagonist in the opening scenes. Even further into the future from when the movie plays for the most part, crime has taken over the cities and mafia and police are at war. It is impossible for the criminals to get rid of dead bodies since new technologies enable the police to track them down. So they use time travel to send these people back into the past where a hired looper will do the job for them. Are you still with me? This is quite heavy already. But this is probably what you already knew briefly. There is another aspect you have to be aware of. In the world of Looper there are people who have telepathic powers. They try to explain it with biological mutations or something but in the end telepathic powers exist because the writer of the story wanted it to and made use of the "no reason"; that most powerful element of style. I was a little shocked when Gordon Levitt told me about this in the voice over as it comes out of nowhere. But, hey - get over it!
If you are still with the film now then this is where the fun begins. The intruiging component of the story is that every looper at one point in his life has to "close his own loop". That means he has fulfilled the contract and is about to retire. In order to do that and recieve his last opulent paycheck he has to kill one last person - his future self. That is the deal and garantuees for thirty more years of life in luxury. Gordon Levitt's character is okay with that. He is a selfish and drug addicted young man who lives in the moment. Rather would he sacrifice a long life to live careless in his younger years. But something is going wrong. When his older self, played by Bruce Willis, arrives, he is able to escape. Willis, older an wiser, cares about his life and the life of his wife. She was killed by mobsters just before he traveled back in time. Now he is trying to find the crime boss - the child responsible for her death in the future. With Willis out of control Gordon Levitt is now also a threat for the mafia. The chase is set up. Bruce Willis against the mob, Gordon Levitt against the mob and himself (Willis) and a young child in the middle of it all.
The film is clever about its use of the time travel concept and comes up with some really exciting ideas. Moreover, it wisely ignores too much explanation on how its mechanisms work. If you want to find them there are some inconsistencies and time travel paradoxes to find that are beyond explanation. But for the most part Looper foregoes this kind of problems and seems to be coherent in its own way.
The tight script zips along with a lot of good action and humor but its focus remains on the characters. In a brillant scene when the two protagonists meet (or should I say when the protagonist meets himself) Bruce Willis is talking down to his egocentric, hotheaded self like a father trying to lead his son on the right way. It's rather Willis reflecting his life and wishing he had made different decisions in the past. Gordon Levitt insists on his right to do whatever he wants. He can hardly believe that this is what he is to become and rejects to admit to the idea. But how certain is his fate? Since he has the power to control his future is Willis just a possibility? And if he can change things what is he willing to do? When he meets the seemingly innocent kid there is one crucial decision to be made.
In the end the film is about growing up. It is about what shapes our personalities and what effect certain events may or may not have on us. Gordon Levitt's character evolves. He found a lot of money, he found a lot of uncertainty, but also he found a little bit of truth that most of us will only find in retrospect. The path of life isn't predetermined. And you can never be quite sure about the consequences of your choices.
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