Three stars. Rating: R, for strong violence, gore, profanity, nudity, sexuality and drug use
By Derrick Bang
Clever time travel stories can be
intriguing head-scratchers; I just wish Looper weren’t so vicious, nasty and
morally bankrupt.
This is one of those stories
populated solely by thugs, killers and other assorted low-life scum; by the
time our one truly sympathetic character steps onto the stage, we’ve been
numbed almost senseless.
Writer/director Rian Johnson is
known for his off-center sensibilities, which have ranged from the whimsically
eccentric (2008’s The Brothers Bloom) to the downright brutal (a few episodes
of TV’s Breaking Bad). His career-making debut, 2005’s Brick, starred
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a teenage loner who turns amateur Sam Spade in order to
figure out who killed his former girlfriend; rarely has high school looked so
corrupt and seamy.
Johnson re-unites with
Gordon-Levitt for Looper, another in a recent line of science-fiction
concepts that takes place in a near future where society and compassionate
behavior have gone straight to hell. (See In Time, Repo Men and the remake
of Total Recall, among others.) Such films borrow strongly from Blade
Runner, but generally without the intelligence, wit and fascinating ethical
undercurrents of that 1982 classic.
That said, I give Johnson credit
for an intriguing premise. The year is 2044, the setting a major American
metropolis that has failed, its dilapidated infrastructure barely able to
support the 99 percent who now appear to live in slums, and look with envy upon
the few sophisticates wealthy enough to purchase things such as slick hover
vehicles. The economy has fallen apart, and manufacturing appears to have
stopped; as a result, the “common folk” drive old cars and live in apartments
that could have sprung from a 1950s-era Raymond Chandler novel.
And, as with the sci-fi/western
mash-up Joss Whedon concocted for his short-lived but much-loved TV series, Firefly, the weapons of choice are 19th century pistols and a shotgun-esque
nightmare known as a blunderbuss.
Time travel doesn’t yet exist,
but it’s known to have been invented 30 years in the future, where it’s illegal
and available only on the black market. Since disposing of a dead body is near
impossible in 2074, mobsters employ time travel in order to “vanish” their
enemies. The hapless victims pop up at pre-determined spots in 2044, where a
“looper” — a hired killer — blows them away and then cremates the remains. No
muss, no fuss.
The loopers get their marching
orders from Abe (Jeff Daniels), a crime boss sent back from the future to keep
things organized in 2044. His best agents include Seth (Paul Dano), who tries
to conceal his psychological frailty beneath reckless behavior; Kid Blue (Noah
Segan), an immature toady whose opinion of his murderous talents outshines his
actual skill; and Joe (Gordon-Levitt), a career hit man who genuinely enjoys
his job, and is quite good at it.
We’re introduced to Joe as he
plies his brutal trade ... repeatedly. Johnson, obviously not a subscriber to
the downside of overkill, clearly believes there’s no such thing as watching
gory chunks blown out of too many hog-tied bodies. We get the point long before
Johnson is finished: a clear indication of the mean-spiritedness to come.
If this film’s first 10 minutes
leave you eyeing the exits, departure would be the better part of valor; things
only get worse.
Assuming loopers don’t perish on
the job and successfully reach middle age, they’re then deemed a liability by
those same mob bosses in 2074, who ship them back to be executed by their
younger selves in 2044; this is known as “closing the loop.” The loopers get a
fat payoff for this final assignment, and then can live their next 30 years in
luxury and peace ... albeit knowing what fate eventually awaits them.
Occasionally, loopers prove
unable to carry out this last contract, which leaves their older self
attempting to blend into the past. But because this has the potential to upset
the timestream, Abe always takes steps to correct the balance: a particularly
chilling solution that’s easily the story’s most ghastly concept.
Indeed, I can’t help wondering if
Johnson thought of that horrific notion first, and then fashioned the rest of
his narrative around it.
Anyway, Joe eventually is faced
with the need to close his loop ... but his older self, “Old Joe” (Bruce
Willis), has some tricks up his sleeve, and escapes. To make matters even more
complicated, Old Joe has learned of a psychopath in 2074, who is killing all loopers; Old Joe’s solution to this
problem, which is particularly heinous, would work out better if Joe helped.
But Joe just wants to finish the
job, in order to get Abe’s goons off his
back.
Are you following all this?
Don’t try too hard, because some
of Johnson’s plot points collapse under scrutiny; that’s always an issue with
time travel stories. Best, if possible, to simply side with Joe — and possibly
Old Joe — in their efforts to “fix things” and survive.
Assuming you feel that would be a
good outcome, which is far from certain. This guy — both of him — don’t exactly
side with the angels.
Gordon-Levitt makes an intriguing
protagonist: a junkie, thrill-seeker and ruthless killer ... who nonetheless
hesitates when asked to betray a friend. Conscience and integrity may be buried
deeply within this lad, but they’re not entirely dead, and Gordon-Levitt’s eyes
reflect this inner turmoil.
He’s at something of a
disadvantage when it comes to subtler acting, though, because he spends the
entire film in makeup and a prosthetic nose, upper and lower lip, all designed
to help him resemble Willis, and courtesy of special effects makeup designer
Kazuhiro Tsuji. The result is visually impressive; even Gordon-Levitt’s avid
fans, if not in the know, might have trouble recognizing him. But this partial
mask does turn him into something of a blank stone face.
Willis, under no such burden,
navigates a range that runs from his signature smirk and smart-mouthed
one-liners, to cold brutality and even a bit of loving warmth. Indeed, it would
be nice to spend a bit more time with Old Joe; the man has matured into a
complicated soul who genuinely wants to be a better person ... but finds that
his old life simply won’t leave him alone. The question, then, is whether he
still has the stomach for extreme solutions.
Daniels, scruffy beneath an
ill-kempt beard, employs an amiable nature — which we recognize from so many
other films — as a means to magnify his character’s savagery, when Abe is
required to administer some coldhearted discipline. Dano is his frequently
twitchy self as the easily agitated Seth — an undeveloped, one-dimensional role
— and Segan essentially serves as (grim) comic relief, as the dim-witted Kid
Blue.
Piper Perabo turns up as Suzie, a
hedonistic dancer/stripper with a fondness for Joe. Fans of Perabo’s
resourceful Annie Walker on TV’s Covert Affairs likely will be surprised by
the amount of skin she bares here: an interesting career choice, to say the
least.
That leaves Emily Blunt, who
turns up in the second act as Sara, who ... well, I really can’t say anything about Sara, without giving away
too many details. Suffice it to say that Blunt delivers her usual thoughtful,
accomplished and deftly layered performance. Young Pierce Gagnon, who plays
Sara’s son, Cid, pretty much steals the film once he enters the story: such an expressive little face, and such
a fascinating character.
Blunt and Gagnon almost are worth
the price of admission ... assuming, as already mentioned, that your eyes
haven’t glazed over by the time they appear.
I’d love to have seen Looper handled by a writer and director with restraint and a greater appreciation for subtlety;
Johnson’s core premise has plenty of potential, and some of the narrative bumps
are clever and quite haunting. Unfortunately, he too frequently trades
“unsettling” for “offensively gross,” which transports his film to the fringes of torture porn such as the Saw franchise.
And that’s the major problem: Looper is marketed as thoughtful sci-fi, when in fact it’s gut-churning
horror ... a distinction liable to annoy patrons who wander in unprepared.
Johnson is more talented than this, and it’s a shame to see him pander to a
gore-hound’s lowest common denominator.
No comments:
Post a Comment