by Braden Rendano
Audience Age/Rating: Rated R for drug content, strong violence, language, and some sexuality/nudity
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Director: Rian Johnson
Looper is a decent movie with good actors; however, the plot and perspective could leave room for improvement. In the year 2044, America has a high percentage of the population living in poverty. America has lots of crime as well. An organization of criminal assassins, called Loopers, are men who assassinate people from the future, so they do not exist. The victims are sent back into present time from the future, and the Looper shoots them and gets rid of the body. The body contains silver plates which are used as money.
Loopers are paid well and live a good life of partying and fun. Their job is pretty easy, and the people who are sent back in time to be killed come with silver plates, which can be used as money that they can spend or keep.
Due to the powerful man in the future, known as the Rainmaker, lots of Loopers have been closing their loop. This is when a Looper has to kill his future self, and he only has a certain time till he will be killed. They have thirty years after closing their loop, till they will be taken out.
Soon, the main character Joe, portrayed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is in the same situation, but he hesitates to shoot his loop (Bruce Willis) and he escapes. Now Joe is pursued by the Looper organization for not closing his loop, and he is also hunting the future Joe to finish him off.
Joe’s future self has other problems. He wants revenge on a man in the future called the Rainmaker for killing his wife. However, since this is in present time, the future Joe is basically hunting little kids that he thinks may be the Rainmaker, so they don’t kill his wife in the future.
Future America is interesting to see, the massive poverty rate, new drugs that are taken via eye drops, and flying vehicles. There are also people who are TK (telekinetic) , which allows them to move things without touching them.
First off, the director did a good job with multiple scenes of showing how the present Joe ages and becomes the future Joe. It is unique to see the aging process, and it also gives a glimpse into his life and what he does in the future. They even changed Joseph-Gordon-Levitt’s appearance, so he would more closely resemble Joe’s future self, Bruce Willis.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a good actor, and he does a good job portraying Joe’s character. He is young, and he has the laid back personality that a Looper could have. He also seems like a guy that could easily be rich and a party man involved in crime.
I feel like they could have explained time travel a bit better. If viewers knew how the time travel worked, then it would add details to help viewers better understand what was going on. The movie was rather complex, which made it a bit confusing at times. It was a movie that I had to think about to understand. For this reason, I feel like some people may find it confusing and hard to follow.
One thing that could have been improved was the perspective of the story. The man known as the Rainmaker was confusing to me. There should have been more details and background information with this character, so it could help the story flow better and get a better understanding about what was going on.
In the movie, there is a scene talking about the gun that Loopers use and how it is very accurate and will hit someone within a certain distance, and once the Looper kills their target all they have to do is get rid of the body. This seems like a fairly easy job, that a lot of people may be capable of doing, so why were only certain people picked as Loopers, and why do they get paid so much? I know that the Looper Organization is working for the mob, so it could be the fact that what they are doing is illegal, so they may get extra money for doing it, but are there other reasons?
Overall, Looper is a decent movie, but it is definitely not perfect.
