Movie Review: Looper

Last night I went to see Looper. I had actually not heard much about it, but I looked it up online real quick and at least it sounded like a good premise for a movie. I have always enjoyed sci-fi, and especially time-travel.

The premise is that Joe is a "looper", a contract killer in a near future (2044). About 30 years after that, time-travel has been invented, but declared illegal. So only the biggest crime syndicates have access to time-travel, and they use it to get rid of people. The send the victim back 30 years in time, bound and gagged with a hood over their heads. The looper promptly kills them and disposes of the body. The looper is paid with silver attached to the victim. Occasionally the future version of the looper is sent back, who kills his older himself. The is called "closing the loop".

Joe (played by an excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a looper. One day his future self (Bruce Willis) shows up, but promptly escapes. In the future, a new gangster boss, "The Rainmaker" has taken over, and he is closing the loop on all loopers. In doing so, the future Joe lost his wife, and he is now looking to prevent this by finding the young Rainmaker in the past and kill him.

I truly enjoyed this movie, it was absolutely much better than I had expected, and it makes you think more than the average movie. The story is clever and it works. You see influences of both Back to The Future and The Terminator in the story, as well as to Carrie and X-Men (with the concept of telekinesis), but it all fits well into the story.

I would highly recommend this movie. However, it´s not a movie for kids, due to violence (and for sensitive Americans, some nudity).

 

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