The first rule of sci-fi writing is that you can make any world you choose to as long as you remain true to its own internal logic. And the second low is, Maguffin's notwithstanding, it makes some sort of sense. It doesn't have to be great sense, it doesn't have top be "Blade Runner" but it can't be absolutely baffling. "Looper", about assassins from 2074 sent to kill their younger selves in 2044, is complete nonsense. It has no internal tick tock that clicks it into position.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a junkie assassin whose job it is to kill people the mob rubbed out, brought over from the future and nailed here because DNA tests are so good they've run out of ways to hide the murders in 2074. Assassins do this for a number of years and then retire for 30 years with plenty of bucks till it is their time to have the loop closed on themselves and put to death by their earlier selves.
Bruce Willis plays Joe, 30 years later, brought back to be murdered but with living on his mind out to track down a child who is closing all the Loops in the future and who, if put to death as child, won't cause older Joe's wife to be killed.
Got it?
As the best character in the movie, Jeff Daniels is the leader of the mobsters puts it, "If you think about it too long it will fry your brains". It is, indeed the fried brain to fry brain. And Jeff plays the kindest murdering thug you ever want to meet. He just feels so bad about it all. If we could just be more reasonable. But what if you can get past that? If you can get past that, it is an idiot plot, where nearly any ten seconds of thought could solve it, but ten seconds of thought is not what we get. Instead we get an action movie sci-fi that Phil K. Dick wouldn't piss on.
The action is lamo Bruce Willis shoot em up in pained martyr mode, I am getting a little sick of Gordon-Levitt, you can't throw a brick without hitting him in some movie and to be quite honest, on "500 Days" was any cop. That and the High School detective one, yeah I know, "Brick". He is really no fun here at all. Directed by Riann Johnson, who directed "Brick" , it isn't as clever as he thinks it is.
Among its many problem, one appears to be that none of it is fun. Everybody is so mind boggled by the intricate looping plot they forget to notice that THEY AREN'T ENJOYING THEMSELVES.
If I was coming at the movie the same way I came at "Brick" I'd like it a lot more, but it wears its self-importance on its sleeve and really, it isn't that clever.
Musically, they have two main numbers, one a good soul song I didn't recognize, the other the old Richard And Linda Thompson track, "I Want To See The Bright Light Tonight", which is so good it took me right out of the movie.
Movie: C+
Music: B+
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