During a pivotal scene in the film, a character contemplates, ‘I saw a mom who would die for her son, I saw a man kill for his wife, a boy angry and alone, laid out in front of him the bad path that saw it’. Looper is laced with such dolorous themes.
Directed by Rian Johnson who has films like ‘Brick’ and ‘The Brothers Doom’ to his credit, the film is a surprise melancholy ride packaged as action thriller. The film doesn’t pursue to be a smart movie for popcorn loving audience; rather it is conspicuously confident of its narrative so much that it doesn’t try to be anything else. And therein lies its biggest achievement. it is a vexed dance to death between the main characters. All the characters in Looper go through various stages of grief; Joseph Gordan-Levitt goes from being fearful and uncertain to lamentable, Bruce Willis goes from being wretched to being cataclysmic while Emily Blunt goes from being dreary to being paralyzed. What is admirable here is how each one takes a different path to surmount their prostate situation with differing consequences.
The film is set in Kansas 2044 when time-travel takes center stage even though it will be invented 30 years later. The Loopers are hired contractors who kill and dispose off the bodies of their targets sent from the future. Gordan-Levitt is one such looper. His laborious life takes an unforeseen turn when his next target turns out to be his future self, played by Willis. When Willis escapes all hell breaks loose as both men embark on a grisly path while also being chased down by the mob boss played by Jeff Daniels. Blunt plays an afflicted mother to an esoteric child targeted by Willis.
In the hands of a lesser confident director, the film could have been yet another drab futuristic saga. Luckily, Johnson is incisive enough of the potential of the script and doesn’t bog the narrative down with harrowing elements. He successfully manages to give a distinctive sense of overture to the drama by investing in the emotional turmoil rather than the flashy effects. His vision is brought to screen aptly by cinematographer Steve Yedlin. He makes use of wide shots in most scenes providing an estranged appeal to the film. Also noteworthy is that most shots have minimal characters present hinting at the isolated lives of the characters. All the cast members, including Paul Dano and Pierce Gagnon, are in top form with Gordan-Levitt and Blunt possibly delivering their career best performances.
Looper embraces the fact that all its characters are broken souls leading chaotic lives with more than a tinge of selfishness. On the face of it, the film is about being warped in endless time travel. But scratch the surface and you will find a movie that depicts the souls entangled in an endless sense of pain and despair.
