Looper

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Year:	2012
Country of origin:	USA / China
Director:	Rian Johnson
Genre:	Time-travel hi-jinks
Starring:	Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276104/
Tagline:	Hunted by your future. Haunted by your past.
Favourite line:	"I'm from the future.  Go to China."

Time travel shenanigans, in this mind-bending sci-fi thriller.

The plot:
It’s 2044.
America, once the great superpower, is in decline. Crime is rife, and China seems destined to claim the crown of world leader.
Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a Looper. In 2074, thirty years into his future, time travel is invented. Immediately banned by all governments, the technology falls into the hands of organised criminals, who use it to kill those that cause them grief. By sending the victim thirty years into the past, to a pre-selected location, Loopers act as assassins, killing people from the future, in the past, so their bodies are undetected in the future, as they have been killed in the past, by a person from the past, using technology from the future.
Got it?
All seems fine, until one day Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) turns up as an intended victim, and Joe hesitates, allowing his future self to escape, and throwing his present self, and his future self’s very existence into jeopardy…..

Time travel movies are hit and miss affairs. For every Terminator, there’s a Timeline, for every Bill and Ted, there’s a Hot Tub Time Machine.
Here, writer / director Rian Johnson lays down the rules pretty early, using voice over, and then just lets the narrative play out. Feels a little forced at the beginning, but it is effective, and brings the audience up to speed very quickly.
So well done.
As always with these cause and effect type plotlines, it is pretty easy to pick holes in it if you so choose, but why would you want to? Just believe what you are being told, and enjoy the show. Doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make absolute sense. The Terminator don’t make no honking-tonking sense. Pretty good film, though.
Well written, this is a very, very good effort, especially considering this is only director Johnson’s sophomore full-length film, and his scribing / helmsman efforts are ably assisted by a very strong cast, which includes the delectable Emily Blunt putting in a fine performance as sassy, spunky Sara, Joe’s potential romantic interlude.
Special mention must be made of Levitt’s take on a young Bruce Willis. With some liberal application of make-up and prosthetics, his face has been moulded to more closely resemble big, bald Bruce’s, but it’s the acting of the role that really impresses. His mannerisms, the way he holds his mouth even, and the small tics and flicks and other idiosyncrasies that make Bruce the man he is have all been very well captured. It is an act of mimicry that is near uncanny on occasion, so very impressed.
Dubbed this decades The Matrix by marketing types, it certainly isn’t that, but what it is, is a very smart, very efficient, very entertaining slice of sci-fi hokum, played dead straight.
Liked it quite a bit, and could even tolerate the precocious little kid.