Looper| B+
So
close to being a great movie is Looper that I want to go back in time
and chat with writer-director Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom)
about the parts of the film that come up short.
When
it comes to time-travel thrillers, Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys looms
large. And not just because, like Looper, it stars Bruce Willis. The
1995 movie, based on Chris Marker’s La Jetee, was the complete entertainment
package: humane, tragic, exciting, surprising and comical. More importantly, it
was science-fiction film that didn’t define itself through gee-whiz production
design and digital effects instead of character and story (ironic given
Gilliam’s résumé).
Looper
has
many of those same instincts and ingredients, yet struggles to make them whole.
Johnson has crafted a smart and suspenseful tale of identity and redemption
but, unfortunately, has placed at his story’s center a protagonist we never
truly get to know.
Joseph
Gordon-Levitt is Joe, an assassin who lives in the crumbling urbanity of 2042 Kansas City. Working for the mob, he kills and disposes of people that have been sent back
in time by his employers. It’s good-paying work, but he knows that one day
he’ll have to terminate his future self. The mob doesn’t like loose ends. Can
he do it when the time comes? The answer becomes moot when his 30-year-older
self (Bruce Willis) manages to escape. This puts both versions of Joe in the
cross-hairs of his boss (a casually wicked Jeff Daniels). Young Joe holes up on
the farm of single mom Sara (Emily Blunt) and her 6-year old telekinetic son,
Cid (Pierce Gagnon). Old Joe hunts for the child that will eventually grow up
to be the biggest, baddest mob boss of all. Can you see where this is going?
Johnson’s
cat-and-mouse thriller keeps the futuristic affectations believable as he
deftly navigates through inventively staged action scenes and cerebral
pretense. There are hover bikes, a few nifty weapons, and older model cars
retrofitted with solar panels, but the world pretty much looks like a bleaker,
poorer version of today. Smartly, he keeps the pace up and the dialogue sharp.
In one cleverly self-referential scene Daniels berates Young Joe for his
fashion sense, stating, “The movies that you’re dressing like are just copying
other movies. Be new.” In another, Looper acknowledges the futility of
explaining time travel mechanics with Daniels spitting, “Time-travel shit fries
your brain like an egg,” and Willis refusing to play along because, “… we’ll
just be here all day making diagrams with straws.”
Looper‘s biggest narrative
stumble, in an otherwise effectively plotted yarn, is Cid’s telekinetic
subplot. It’s one thing to ask an audience to swallow time travel. It’s another
to throw such mental powers into the mix. Creating believable science fiction
is tricky business, and the mantra of “less is more” is something Johnson
should have taken to heart.
Still,
he has a terrific cast to sell his more outlandish ideas. Willis delivers the
same burned-out, sad-eyed machismo he’s been peddling for the last decade, and
it works perfectly here. Blunt brings layers of humanity to a character who
says more than she’s given an opportunity to show. And Levitt pushes aside his
boyish charisma to adopt Willis’ hard-nosed, smirky core. More than just an
impression (and good make-up job), he convincingly portrays his older version’s
past self, the man before man.
But
it’s not quite enough. Johnson seems boxed in by his man-tries-to-kill-himself
conceit. Levitt may be an effective precursor to Willis’ haunted and homicidal
Joe, but, emotionally, he never registers as his own man. His relationship with
Blunt is more about potential than connection, undermining the film’s
half-hearted stab at romance. Worse, Young Joe is so tightly coiled we have a
hard time feeling the impact of his final decision and, thus, Looper‘s
tortuous ethical quandary.
Not
only does Looper raise questions about how far people will go to protect
their loved ones, it also asks whether someone can do good by doing wrong. What
are consequences when a person decides to kill a child they believe is fated to
grow up into a monster? To wrap a serious moral question in a futuristic
shoot-’em-up is a noble and nifty idea, but you’ve got to make us care about
the outcome. While there’s no denying Johnson’s intellectual ambitions, a
little more heart would have given his film the punch it needs.
This article appears in Sep 26 – Oct 2, 2012.