Looper // DVD Review
"the film has a cool quasi-steampunk groove to it, and it’s paced well enough that the bloody stupidity doesn’t get in the way" - Jay works his way through Looper
...and the barman says, “I’m sorry, we don’t serve time-travelling hit-men in here,” which is both hilarious and serves to illustrate a point: There are two kinds of time-travel films; brilliantly confusing (Donnie Darko and the amazing Primer) and bloody stupid (all the others). That’s not to say that the bloody stupid ones can’t be good (Terminator, BTTF) but you have to stop yourself from thinking too deeply about them, not because they’re confusing, but because they’re bloody stupid. Looper is a bloody good, bloody stupid film.
Its central idea is very interesting: Future organised crime cartels send people they want whacked back in time to be quickly dealt with by a “looper” – a past-dwelling hit-man – that way there’s no body to dispose of in their present. See? When one of the victims from the future (I won’t let on who) escapes his grisly fate we’re into familiar chase-movie territory, but with an interesting twist. All good, bloody stupid, fun.
Now, if you gets to thinkin’ – something I’m perhaps a little over-prone to do – you realise it doesn’t actually make any sense. Paradoxes are brushed under the carpet and the laws of temporal mechanics are cherry-picked to serve the story. No matter, though; if you’re not the gratuitously joyless, wordy pedant I am there’s a lot to like here: Bruce Willis and JGL shine in comfortable surroundings, ably supported by Emily Blunt and Paul Dano, the film has a cool quasi-steampunk groove to it, and it’s paced well enough that the bloody stupidity doesn’t get in the way of what is essentially a damn good yarn.
Talking of good yarns, here’s a doozy: A time travelling hit-man walks into a pub...
Jay Freeman
