Looper

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. Time travel has been invented and is used by future criminals to send their victims back to the present for extermination. The story line is set up fairly quickly. Using an elaborate system of current-day contracted professional executioners, organised and controlled by one man (Jeff Daniels), we are introduced to a successful executioner. Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives an outstanding performance in this pivotal role. In the present time some people have developed telekinetic abilities, impressing girls by floating coins in the air. In the future there is a manic criminal who single-handedly is overtaking the criminal world and executing many people. In order to get rid of him an executioner (Bruce Willis) is sent back to the present to hunt and kill the child who has become this future maniac. The executioner sent back is the future self of Levitt’s character. While Willis is hunting for the child. Levitt is trying to avoid his boss (Daniels) who want to get rid of him for not following orders. A twist to the story is that the executioners’ contract becomes due with a 30 year notification, after which they themselves are executed. For this cancellation they are paid up front in gold bars. Through a series of twists in the relationship between Levitt’s present and future self, a map and an address of a rural area comes into his possession, leading to a farm on which a single mother and her son live. The boy has extraordinary powers. Levitt arrives one night wounded. The boy finds him in the cornfield. The mother brings him to the house and tends to his wounds. Meanwhile Wills finds the house, having killed one little boy in error. The rest of the story comes together quickly and ends with a spectacular demonstration of the little boy’s power and how Levitt’s character saves the day. While the film takes the viewers through many twists and turns, it does leave us with a paradox. When all is past, the boy is still alive in the present time, and therefore he will be alive in the future. How does he not become the tyrant? Does his mother teach him to use his powers for the good? Ecetera? Ecetera? Great film. Violent, but a must see.