Looper

To clarify what a "Looper" is: In 2074, time travel has been invented and outlawed. The organized crime of the day has a hard time hiding bodies and comes up with the solution of sending those they want killed 30 years into the past to be killed and disposed of. It is the looper's job to kill those targets. The targets have the looper's payment, bars of silver, attached to them. At some point, the looper will have their "loop closed" when their future self is sent back to be killed. This future self will have gold bars instead of silver so that the looper, who has effectively been retired, can live whatever life they feel like with the knowledge that in 30 years, they'll be sent back in time to die.

In the (not so) far flung future of 2044, Joe Simmons is a looper. Joe loves his job. He's good at what he does, and gives little thought to his future beyond hoarding away the silver he earns so he can live out his retirement in France. He and his friend Seth are regular visitors to La Belle Aurore, a local club owned by Abe, an organized crime boss sent back to ensure the loopers do their jobs and close their loops when the time comes. Abe encourages Joe to go to Shanghai instead of France, with the guarantee that Abe's from the future, so he knows what he's talking about. One night, Seth comes to Joe and begs for help: Seth's most recent target was his future self, whom he recognizes and fails to kill. Seth's future self warns him that a powerful mob boss in the future known as The Rainmaker is closing all loops. Joe ultimately turns in Seth, and actions are taken against Present Seth to pass on the message to Future Seth that he has nowhere to run.

Present Joe's loop comes through, but instead of being bound and gagged, Future Joe is free and manages to escape. Present Joe, having seen what happens to loopers who fail to close their loops, is determined to close his loop. Cutting a message into his arm knowing the scar will appear on his future self, Present Joe meets Future Joe at his favorite diner. There, Future Joe confirms that The Rainmaker is closing all loops and Future Joe has come back to kill The Rainmaker before he becomes too powerful. Little is known of The Rainmaker, other than it is said he has a prosthetic jaw and witnessed his mother's murder. Future Joe has come back with only a timecode for the hospital where The Rainmaker was born. He manages to acquire a list of three children born on that day in that hospital, all possible Rainmakers. Before Present Joe can stop Future Joe, Abe's enforcers show up to eliminate both of them. Both Joes escape with a piece of the map showing the location of the possible Rainmakers. So now, the chase is on. Which Joe will be successful first, and how will the future be affected by their actions...

» Wait, now Snape kills Hitler? «

Future Joe finds and kills his first target. Meanwhile, Present Joe arrives on the farm owned by the target on his piece of the map. There, Present Joe meets Sara and her son Cid. After a grueling detox, Present Joe shows Sara his piece of the map. She recognizes the numbers on the map as Cid's birthday and the code of the hospital he was born in. Present Joe offers to stay and protect her and ultimately kill Future Joe when he comes for Cid. Present Joe and Sara get closer and she tells Joe that she is telekinetic, a mutation that has appeared in a small portion of the people in the future. She explains that due to her life situation, she left Cid with her sister and only came back to raise Cid when her sister died, which is why Cid doesn't believe that Sara is his mother.

Future Joe finds his second target, but has reservations when he sees that it is the child of Suzie, an exotic dancer from La Belle Aurore whom Present Joe had a relationship with. Meanwhile, back on the farm, one of Abe's enforcers arrives to question Sara. Cid helps Present Joe hide until the enforcer leaves. But the enforcer soon returns and confronts Present Joe. Cid, sneaking downstairs to see what's going on, trips and falls down several steps. Sara grabs Present Joe and flees the farmhouse as Cid has a violent telekinetic outburst and kills the enforcer.

Meanwhile, Future Joe has returned to Suzie's apartment to kill her child, but is instead ambushed by another enforcer and captured. Taken back to La Belle Aurore and Abe, Future Joe breaks free and proceeds to kill all but one of Abe's enforcers, along with Abe himself. All of his opposition eliminated, Future Joe heads to the farm.

Cid's outburst tells Present Joe that he is The Rainmaker and that his terrifying powers allowed him to take over in the future. Sara explains that as Cid's mother, she can keep him under control. Present Joe has grown attached to Cid and cannot bring himself to kill the boy and stop The Rainmaker. Present Joe decides the best way to keep them safe is for Sara and Cid to leave. Future Joe arrives and confronts Present Joe. Before Present Joe can kill Future Joe, the last surviving enforcer interrupts. Present Joe kills him, but Future Joe manages to get away. Future Joe intercepts Sara and Cid and manages to catch Cid's cheek with a bullet. As Cid is about to have another telekinetic outburst, Sara calms him down.

Present Joe arrives as Future Joe recovers and continues with his plan to kill Cid. Sara sends Cid into a nearby cornfield and stands between him and Future Joe. Present Joe watches the scene unfold and foresees the birth of The Rainmaker: the prosthetic jaw a result of Cid's untreated bullet wound; the hated of loopers a result of seeing his mother killed trying to save him. Present Joe, possessing only a short range weapon, does the only thing he can think to stop Future Joe: he turns the gun on himself.

There's quite a history of time travel films, both jumping forward and travelling backwards. Some of them detail the philosophy behind the limits of time travel, such as The Time Machine's protagonist who cannot save his beloved because it would negate his need to build the time machine he would use to save her. Some deal with the idea of paradoxes and the havoc time travel wreaks, such as Millennium or TimeCop, where small changes to the past drastically change the future. There are even a few serious looks at the possibilities of real life time travel, such as Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking's. Looper is another time travel film, but one that not only goes out of its way to avoid discussing the mechanics of time travel, but for the most part makes you not care.

The movie doesn't do much with time travel other than introduce it as a plot device. As the two Joes sit in the diner, Future Joe tells Present Joe that if he were to try and explain things they'd "be here all day, making diagrams with straws." And it actually works well, for the most part. By relegating time travel to the background, the movie avoids many of the tropes associated with it and tells the story of a man at two different points in his life fighting to save the woman he loves, damn the consequences of that decision.

Sadly, this isn't really CGI, they just
punched him in the face a few times.
Presto, instance Bruce Willis face.

Looper is very cleanly done. There's a good bit of special effects, but the only one that's a little weird are the effects used to make Present Joe, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt look more like a younger version of Future Joe, played by Bruce Willis. The effects are a little weird to look at since Gordon-Levitt's face is already pretty well known. The other effects, including a hover bike and Future Seth's amputations are all very slick.

If you're looking for deeper meaning in the film, Looper shows the growth of Gordon-Levitt's character from a simple hitman to someone who cares about those his actions effect. Actually, it shows it twice over through both Present Joe's and Future Joe's life choices. Deep down, the movie posits the question: what would you do to protect the ones you love, even from yourself? 

Overall, I think Looper came out pretty well. If you sit down and try to work out exactly the hoops you need to jump through the get the timelines correct, you'll spend a good deal of time arguing over exactly which straw goes where and how to get from point A to point B via points D, G, and R. But, since there's no need for such deep examination to keep the movie going, you can avoid it entirely and just enjoy the film. And if you really want to, Google "Looper straws" and feel free to join in on the stream of arguments. Or post your own theories somewhere where everyone's going to see it (so not the comments below). 

Looper is definately a buy-it. I don't know that seeing it in a theater would add much to the experience, but you'll want to watch it more than once, especially for your straw-based time travel analysis. And I'm sure there are probably some slick extra features that would be worth checking out.

Ron Perlman has time traveled several times, though most of them were for the sake of being in multiple movies at the same time. There was that one time he saved the Titanic from sinking, but the James Cameron got pissed and made him undo it.

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