First off, as always, SPOILER WARNING! Although I usually don't discuss too many plot
points, Looper is best watched fresh so if you are interested in
watching this - just go watch it – I recommend it highly.
Still with us?
Ok, so misleading trailers (once again) convey Looper to be a sort of Total Recall or Minority Report-type futuristic action sci-fi film, when really it
has more in common with more cerebral and philosophical films that concern time
travel - such as Time Crimes or Triangle. Marketing hype’s billing of
the film as ‘This decade’s The Matrix’
is not only misleading but feels sort of inappropriate – spiritually it has
more in common with say, Donnie Darko
or 12 Monkeys (another Bruce Willis
time travel flick) and is certainly not as game-changing as The Matrix proved to be on its release
back in 1999.
The true heart of it this film is really about
human connection and less about the raw technicalities of time travel. Even
within the film, Bruce Willis points out to his younger self that if they were
to sit and discuss the ins and out of time travel they would just end up
drawing diagrams on the tables; as well as mob boss Jeff Daniels openly admitting
that “all this time travel crap, just fries your brain like an egg” – a pretty explicit
instruction to the audience to not worry too much about the logic of it all and
just enjoy the story.
And what it is that makes this story so good is not contained within the
action scenes (as the trailers or indeed Matrix
comparisons may have you believe) but the aforementioned theme of human
connection – that is both the main focus of the plot (the making of the
Rainmaker, being able/not able to kill your future self etc…) but also one that permeates
nearly every aspect of the story and each character.
The small details that link into this theme are what helps make this film so
rich and compelling: the 'Loopers' themselves being lost or abandoned young men,
deprived of any sort of real human connection with anyone else - which explains
why they have no qualms taking on the job and its ’30 year release clause’ or
why they are so often prone to becoming drug addicts; how human connection can save a person or lack of it destroy
someone; and so on – this film is rich with it – and you know I am a sucker for
these kind of thematically layered and nuanced films.
Two things that most notably contribute to this
film’s success; Firstly is writer/director Rian Johnson – most known for his
high school noir film Brick (which
also starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt). He can direct story with ease – certain
sequences in Looper convey a myriad
of emotions and thematic textures so deftly – sometimes without even having a
single word of dialogue being spoken. A standout example of this is the ‘30 years’
sequence – you will know it when you see it – as powerful as a similar sequence
towards the beginning of Pixar’s Up. Even
the small touches, such as Emily Blunt’s character smoking an imaginary
cigarette, convey so much with so little.
The second piece of the puzzle is leading man
(or rather the shared lead) of Joseph Gorden-Levitt. He had a good, yet
admittedly straightforward, performance in the recent The Dark Knight Rises - but here, he is a revelation. Obviously
there is the prosthetics and make-up to make him look like a young version of
Bruce Willis, but the point of it is he becomes
Bruce Willis. Mannerisms, speech and all. Bruce Willis is just… well, how Bruce
Willis is in most films – there is no sense of the two meeting in the middle. It's a great performance by Gordon-Levitt. As such
there is a distinct electricity when the two share the screen together – most
noticeably in the diner scene – the 'ooooh shiiiit' feeling that is up there with that seminal scene in Michael Mann’s Heat.
However this is not a perfect film - it's a
fairly long movie and yet some elements seem a bit rushed. Perhaps it would
have been better suited to a short TV series? But then they wouldn't have
gotten the budget or such wonderful actors. Swings and roundabouts I guess…
And I haven’t even got around to talking about
that one amazing child actor giving off that Damien from The Omen vibe – chillingly effective.
You may have noticed the numerous references to
other films throughout this write-up; it's because this film
contains such a mash-up of styles and homages – and bizarrely it all works –
much of it due to Johnson’s command of his material and the overarching theme
of human connection that binds it all together. In lesser hands this could have
been a vastly different affair – a clumsy, forgettable popcorn blockbuster action
flick – but Looper certainly isn’t. It’s sci-fi with heart.
As such, Looper
comes thoroughly recommended and is a contender for one of my favourite films
of this year.
2 Oct 2012
well said Sebby, thoroughly enjoyed reading this!
ReplyDelete