A Twisted Tale

A futuristic action-thriller that will keep you guessing till the very end, Rian Johnson's Looper is a fresh attempt at creating drama out of time-travel. Set in 2044, the film revolves around the new-age gangsters and mob that use the illegal technology of travelling through time to commit crimes of the present in the past.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a hired assassin whose job is to simply kill the targets sent by the future mob and dispose off their bodies in a time when those people don't even exist. But life gets complicated for the Looper, what Joe and his likes are referred to as, when he realises that the mob has decided to end his loop and sent future Joe (Bruce Willis) to die at his own hands.

Now, it is quite obvious that a premise as complex as time-travel tends to indulge you in its plausibility but the director does a great job in making you focus on the plot and the story, instead of pondering on the mechanical details and loopholes in the execution of the fantastic theme. All the doubts with respect to the plot are answered in the first 15-20 minutes and once you have bought into the premise, the journey of the character keeps you glued to your seat through the remainder of the film. The narrative moves at a brisk pace, boldly slowing down at places to dig deeper into the characters' lives and motives, which works very well.

The editing pattern is a little difficult to get used to initially, but as the theme settles, you get a hang of the events. The cinematography is pretty generic for the genre and the background score is as good as absent. A tight story executed with precision and brought on screen with extreme perfection, Rian Johnson has done a great job.

Although it is an outright futuristic action film, Johnson spends adequate time in exploring the universal themes of existence, love, loss and sacrifice. All in all, the Future You will be thankful if you saw this film, and the Past You will have made a great choice by watching it. Get it?

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Published in DNA After Hrs (Pune) on October 14, 2012